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THE 21st CENTURY--END of CIVILIZATION?
An Article by Wesley M. Wilson, BS, MBA, JD
The author grew up on a farm in the US Dust Bowl in the 1920s and 1930s. He is a World War II veteran who also took detailed daily notes during travels in more than 215 countries listed by the Travelers Century Club, including 12 war zones.
Man needs food and reasonably pure water and air to live. In a good year the world can provide that for the present population, if there is no major catastrophe. But if world population continues to increase at the present rate and we use the Earth’s resources at the present rate, man may not continue to live in civilized societies beyond the end of this century. The quality of life will deteriorate long before civilized life becomes impossible, because of overcrowding, shortages of food and water, diseases, destruction of the environment, and fights over the limited usable resources. Those surviving on Planet Earth may be required to live like traditional societies, close to nature, in isolated groups.
The Population Explosion. There were four times as many people in the world at the end of the 20th Century as there were at the beginning of the century. The US rate of growth was slightly slower. The population increased even faster in many areas. Population in the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) quadrupled in the last 70 years. [1930-about 330 mil.; 2000, Bangladesh 130 mil., India one billion, 140 Pak. = 1,270 mil.] It is predicted to almost double in the next 50 years. Africa’s population tripled in the last 40 years. It is predicted to almost triple in the next 50 years, despite much suffering from AIDs, wars, and starvation. China had around 300 million in the 1930s, 583 million in 1953, today it has more than twice as many people, despite a good birth control policy for more than 20 years. The number of children per woman is decreasing in most countries, but the declining death rate causes the net increase. In Africa, Asia, and other traditional cultures, poor families, with no pension or savings, want several sons. Sons must support their parents when they get old. Births do not exceed deaths in Japan and several countries in Western Europe, but at least one billion people in poor countries would like to migrate to a rich country, such as Western Europe, Australia, Canada, or the USA. The world’s population increases some 80 million each year, as births exceed deaths. Planned Parenthood estimates that at least 75 million pregnancies each year are unwanted, but 40 percent of them result in a live birth. Modern contraceptive devices and the safe medical termination of early-term pregnancies must be readily available to all females everywhere, at no cost if they cannot afford to pay. The age structure in many poor countries shows that the majority are young, at a child-bearing age or they will soon be that age. While no one knows what the world population will be in 2050, estimates are in the range of eight to 14 billion.
Easter Island, Ahu Ko Te Riku, has eyes and "
mana," but over-population caused disaster
Increasing Consumption. Each person in the US and other rich countries consumes far more of the Earth’s limited resources than people in a poor country--far more than people in the US used 100 years ago. As people in many countries, from China, India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, western Europe, and others become more affluent they also use more consumer goods. Thus, the Earth’s limited resources are being used at a faster and faster rate. During my travels in nearly all countries, plus Antarctica, the Arctic, and many islands, I have been amazed at the rapidly increasing pollution, melting of ice, loss of fish and wildlife, loss of topsoil, and other deterioration of the environment.
Education. Education is nearly always desirable. Yet, in at least 28 countries, mostly African or Islamic, less than 50 percent of the people can read or write at a basic level. Worldwatch estimates that 900 million people are illiterate. The best way to reduce family size is better education and more job opportunities for girls and women, so they can accomplish something without producing a home full of sons. Six or eight years of education for everyone should be the desired standard for almost everyone. Those who complete more than eight years of education, in a poor country, often cannot find jobs commensurate with their education and training. Frustrated, they stay in the city, and turn to crime, drugs, and alcohol. They are a threat to the stability of any government. If they return to the home village they are known as a failure, and do not readjust to village standards and its traditional culture, where village elders determine the rules. The quality of life deteriorates for everyone as crime increases.
The “Green Revolution.” Beginning in the 1960s, it provides much more rice, wheat, and some other foods per unit of farmland than ever before. However, the “miracle plants” depend upon expensive hybrid seeds, a great quantity of fertilizer, plus irrigation water, herbicides to control unwanted “weeds,” and pesticides to control insects. Fertilizer is expensive, many farmers cannot afford it. India subsidizes farmers by subsidizing the cost of fertilizer. On one of my trips to India the government announced that it could no longer afford that great expense, and subsidies would be cut. Hundreds of thousands of farmers, each wearing a green sash, converged upon Delhi to protest. The politicians modified the subsidy cuts. Irrigation requires a steady supply of fresh water, which is becoming scarcer near arable areas. It also requires expensive dams. The stored water takes land formerly used for fields, pastures, villages, and factories. This causes more crowding on other land. In the last few decades more than 30 million people have been required to move. to create a reservoir behind a new dam. China’s new Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze required that more than a million villagers move to someplace else in overcrowded China. After a few years salt and other minerals in irrigation water usually begins to destroy the soil’s fertility. Food can be manufactured and mass produced chemically. But, judging by the resistance to genetically modified food, particularly in Europe, the development of this food will be slow. Most countries no longer have land that can be developed for agriculture. The starving young farmers (and older farmer) move into cities. Cities almost everywhere are growing fast, as poor villagers starve and leave to look for work.
Global Warming and Flooding. There is considerable evidence of global warming. When I visited Greenland and the Canadian Arctic in August 2000 and Antarctica in 1998 and in January 2001, scientists on my ships agreed that there is considerable evidence of the melting of ice caps and glaciers everywhere. Ice has been melting for decades, but the rate of melting has recently accelerated. A change in ocean currents and sea temperature changes the weather pattern over a large area. Warming can be good for some areas but bad for other areas. Air pollution and heat from buildings, other fires, and automobiles tend to cause warming of the air. But if pollution is bad it may block out much sunlight, causing cooler weather. The Earth has for eons had ice ages and warmer periods. As the ice cap on glaciers and other land melts, sea levels rise. Many coastal cities, islands, and atolls will be partly under water or completely submerged if sea levels rise a few meters. Thirty-five island countries have formed an organization to try to inform people everywhere of the danger to their homelands --they may soon be underwater. Many cities may be like Venice, which has several feet of water in winter, when the wind blows from the wrong direction. Most of the world’s largest cities are on or near a seacoast, vulnerable to flooding. Around a billion people live in or near coastal cities, they will have to try to find a higher place to live. When I visited the Marshall Islands in 1999 and the Maldives in 2000 the highest point was only a few feet above sea level. Some islanders fear that their country may be completely under water during their lifetime. Some of the world’s best agricultural land is low-lying, near rivers or the sea. It will be lost as sea levels rise.
Loss of Topsoil and Overgrazing. A thin layer of topsoil across the planet provides nearly all of our food. That topsoil is disappearing at a fantastic rate. It usually takes nature several centuries to produce an inch of topsoil. In the 1930s a few years with less than normal rainfall in the USA, plus cattle and the plowing of land that should stay idle, produced loose or baked soil. Wind blew it into the skies and far away. Much of the Eastern US had skies darkened by sand from the Southwest and Midwest. When I was a boy in southwestern Oklahoma, 1927 to 1935, we often saw a dark cloud that turned day into night. I put pilots’ goggles over my eyes and a bandanna over my nose and mouth, and ran for the storm cellar. When the wind died down we carefully climbed out of the cellar to see what was left of our farm buildings, horses, cows, chickens, and crops. Tumbleweeds piled up against barbed wire fences. Sand soon covered everything, leaving only a sand dune where the fence was buried below. Housewives shut the windows tightly, but even the better-built homes had piles of dust at each window and door. Dust even covered everything in cities far away. Many years later I saw similar storms in Mali, Pakistan, India, and elsewhere. In the late 1930s the US government programs of encouraging farmers to stop cultivating marginal land, leave fallow areas, build terraces, plant windbreaks of trees, and to farm with strips of grass or a variety of crops, plus a little rain, began to get the dust under control. Everywhere, the population explosion is causing the plowing of arid or hilly land that should be left idle. Overgrazing by cattle, sheep, and goats are turning marginal land into desert. During recent years of drought, many herders have moved from Mali to Burkina Faso. They are turning the Sahel into the Sahara. Any plant that dares to show itself above the surface will be quickly eaten by a herder’s animal.
Erosion of Topsoil. Agricultural and village people want a small farm of their own. But there are too many people, not enough arable land. Land that is subject to wind or water erosion is being plowed. We moved to a farm in Arkansas, where we often had hard rains in the spring. My father called them “gully washers.” Our terraces, strip farming, and other careful planning didn’t prevent the loss of some topsoil. In 1998 I visited China’s upper Yangtze River at Tiger Leaping Gorge, during a period of unusually heavy rains. The brown river roared like a thousand express trains, as the water, squeezed by high rock walls into a gorge only 90 feet wide. It took much of China’s topsoil into the Yellow Sea. Only about ten percent of China’s land is arable, much of it is desert or mountains. Cities and villages use much of the arable land. One study found that in a recent three year period, 1987 to 1990, China lost 50 million acres of farmland to erosion--equal to the total farmland in Germany, France, Netherlands, and Denmark combined! During a trip to China in 2000 my guide said three percent of China’s farmland is lost each year to erosion. In the lowlands, China’s rivers, with silt, have risen higher than the surrounding flat land. Only dikes keep them from overflowing.
Air Pollution. It filters and weakens sunlight. On my last two trips through China we rarely saw the sun. The huge Sichuan Province, with a fertile valley, is one of the most polluted. We were told that the increasing air pollution reduces China’s crop yield by three percent each year, as its population shoots up. Air pollution is much less in the US and western Europe than it was 50 or more years ago. Most homes were then heated by coal, which helped to produce London’s famous fogs, and similar fog and smog in other cities. Pollution from automobile exhausts, factories, power plants, and burning of wastes is now somewhat regulated in the US and western Europe. However, air pollution in most of the world is much worse now than it was 50 or more years ago. India has beautiful red sunsets. Dust and other pollution in the air filters the sunlight. Only ten years ago I enjoyed seeing the Himalayan Mountains clearly, even from far away. Now, in all directions, one needs an early morning or windy day to see the mountains. Smog, even in rural areas, causes nearby mountains to disappear. When we are only a few hundred feet up on a mountainside, it looks like a big gray lake everywhere below. The “lake” is only smog that hides the valleys. The beautiful Highlands of Papua New Guinea have so many wildfires that smoke hides the hills. Airplanes throughout southeast Asia and the Western Pacific often have to make instrument approaches even on clear days, because of smog. It has already caused a few plane crashes. Farmers now grow many cattle that graze in the forests. Each spring farmers burn leaves so fresh grass will grow for their cattle. It is common in northern India to see forest fires smoldering for several months of the year. In the Solomon Islands my guide set several forest fires, believing he was doing a good deed. He was clearing the land of underbrush, to help the farmers “develop” more land. Along the Amazon’s tributaries I saw many smoldering fires, used to clear land to plant yucca, corn, squash, and other crops. After a few crops the soil in the upper Amazon is so weak it hardly grows anything, so it is abandoned and another patch of land is abused. In the lower Amazon annual flooding brings fresh topsoil from the Andes Mountains and upstream farms. Newspapers in Latin America encourage farmers to desarrollar the land by cutting trees, the way we did in North America not long ago.
The Wrong Food and Poor Distribution. Even if there is enough food in the world, many people suffer from lack of proper food. Experts say that adults should get about 2,400 calories of food each day. Residents of some rich countries, such as the US, Canada, and much of Western Europe, get an average of 20 percent more than that. At least a third of Americans are fat. Even in a good year, about half of the people in Africa, and many in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere, get less than 85 percent of the recommended number of calories. At least a billion people are chronically hungry. During my travels throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America, I have seen too many children and adults who are obviously close to starving. In Peru I learned that rice is now too expensive for most people, in Central America beans are becoming too expensive. In poor countries farmers may have a surplus of food that they would like to sell, but there are no roads, rails, or rivers to get it to any distant market. As a child I regularly walked more than two miles, over two hills, to get to a road that was passable for a school bus, and I walked farther to a rural mail carrier. In bad weather we had to go without mail and school. All-weather roads are still badly needed in two-thirds of the world’s land areas. It is difficult to imagine how crowded a huge city can be in a poor country, unless you have visited poor neighborhoods in some of those cities. The most efficient economic system would find it almost impossible to provide adequate food, water, and basic necessities for the residents.
Poverty and Unequal Incomes. Even if plenty of food was available, the unequal distribution of income would cause hunger. The US is a rich country, but 10 percent of the people have an income below the official poverty level, about $16,400 for a family of four. While the US poverty level would look like luxury to people in poor countries, or in the US during the Great Depression of the 1930s, it looks like poverty where neighbors are prosperous. Incomes in the US have the greatest disparity in the industrial world. The rich are extremely rich. Early in the year 2000 there were 470 billionaires in the world, nearly all are in the US Together, they have more wealth than the total gross domestic product for a year of all but a handful of rich countries. An average income of 800 dollars or less per year is received by the people in at least 17 African countries, in two Asian countries (Afghanistan and Cambodia), and in a few other countries. A UN study in 2000 found that more than 1.2 billion people live on less than one dollar a day, "absolute poverty." The study found that 57 percent of the world’s people live in the poorest 63 countries. They receive only six percent of the world’s income, an average of less than two dollars a day. Europeans are much more egalitarian than are people in the US. European corporate executives earn up to about $500,000 a year, in the US thousands of CEOs receive more than a million dollars a year, in salary and stock options. In the US the CEO of a major corporation is paid 470 times the starting salary; in 1950 the CEO was paid only 40 times. Today, in Japan the CEO is paid 11 times the starting salary, in Germany, 13 times. Many of the very rich are not interested in the common good, but only in how to make another billion dollars. Some religious leaders (including social analyst and pollster, Daniel Yankelovich) and others believe that the US has moved from a sense of “duty to others” to a “duty to self.” Many other countries, especially in Latin America and Asia, also have a great disparity of income and wealth. A 1990 study by Worldwatch found that in Mexico the rich receive 18 times as much income as the poor, while in Brazil those in the upper fifth income level earn 28 times as much as the poorest fifth. In India the richest tenth receive 25 times as much income as the poorest tenth.
Wasteful Expenditures and Debt. Poor countries borrow money to build a dam, mosque, church, or military weapons. Interest on the debt must be paid or the country’s credit rating is poor. More timber, minerals, or food must be exported to pay the interest. Sometimes the poor country gets a factory, which pays the local low wages. If wages and conditions improve for the workers, the international corporation that built the factory closes it and moves to another poor country. The cycle never ends. Poor countries badly need more and better railways, trains, roads, and river boats to move food and other products from where it is grown or made, to the consumers. The poor countries get children, lose their natural resources, and become poorer; the rich get cheap timber, minerals, food, manufactured goods, and illegal immigrants willing to do undesirable jobs for low pay.
Too Many Automobiles. Jet airplanes make contrails that turn into cirrus clouds. There are few deep blue skies left anyplace. Much of the air pollution is caused by the 650 million automobiles in the world. More than one-third of those are in the US, but it has less than five percent of the people. In poor countries vehicles are rarely tuned and the gasoline often contains lead. The pollution causes local people to wear a face mask or cloth over the nose and mouth. Travelers to Cairo, Chengdu, Bangkok, Santiago, Mexico City, and many other cities return home with severe bronchial problems. The automobile is a wonderful machine to get to some nearby place, provided that there is a good road that connects the two places and there are not too many other automobiles. The driver is not dependent upon a schedule, he can go almost anytime. He can carry things in the vehicle. But automobiles, even if finely tuned, pollute the air. In poor countries they are rarely tuned, pollution is much worse. Buses are much more efficient than private cars, but streetcars and trains are even better. Cities made a big mistake when they got rid of streetcars and changed to diesel buses in the 1950s. However, buses are great where there are no trains or streetcars. Poor countries need far more buses. Their buses usually have erratic schedules and are so overloaded with passengers that they are not safe. Germany and France have great transportation networks, but the people love their cars. News broadcasts are full of information about Staubs or bouchons--traffic jams. Everywhere the number of automobiles and their use is growing faster than the road mileage. Many cities are often near gridlock--Rome, Naples, Paris, Jakarta, and Bangkok are examples. The limited amount of petroleum on the planet will become much more expensive, then it will be gone long before the 21st Century ends, unless a miracle occurs. Governments must require that vehicles be more fuel efficient, but the trend toward vans, small trucks, and sports utility vehicles, is discouraging.
Water Shortages. Less rainfall caused by global warming will mean droughts. India depends upon periodic monsoon rains to end its drought and to fill reservoirs. When the monsoon comes late there is much worry. Wells go dry. Crops wilt or don’t even sprout. Farm animals die. People are next. I have traveled through much of West Africa in a four-wheel drive truck, camping in a pup tent each night. Drought years have been common since the 1970s. Millions of cattle, goats, and other animals have died in a year. In some years more than half a million people have quietly died in the drought, almost ignored by the world. The stronger people manage to get to a dirt road, where they try to get help from a passing vehicle. In Burkina Faso I saw a young man, suffering from hunger and thirst, who would be dead by the end of the day. As a farm boy in the US, we had severe droughts in 1936 and 1938. It was scary. We frantically dug the well and the spring deeper and saved our livestock. Many people do not have our good luck. There are many underground fresh water aquifers around the world. Their water has been taken for cities and irrigation at a rate much higher than their recharge from rain. The water level in nearly all of them is dropping, the land above is subsiding. Fresh water can be obtained by desalinating sea water, but much energy is required. Oman, a relatively rich country with few people, gets most of its fresh water by desalination.
Few poor countries enjoy the luxury of potable water. Worldwatch estimates that in 1999 some 1.2 billion people had no clean water. Local people know that they should boil or treat the water before drinking it, but few have the money or take the time to treat it. They get all kinds of dysentery and other ailments from their water, like careless or unlucky travelers to their country. Treatment of sewage is a luxury that few poor countries can afford--it is dumped into a lake, stream, or anywhere. During an expedition through West Africa a few years ago we filled our big Jerry cans at village wells or pools in creeks, treating water with concentrated chlorine before drinking it. One city of some 30,000 people was almost out of water, only a few wells and a landowner with a small lake had any water. Our expedition leader spent all day trying to buy enough water to fill our cans. He followed rumors that a particular business or home had water to sell, and finally filled several cans. Water cost more than gasoline. Local people who had little money and no vehicle to use for their search had to go without water. One-third of the women and girls in the world spend much of their time each day getting fresh water and fuel for the cooking fire. If city people had to carry all of their water from afar on top of the head, rather than by turning on the faucet, they would use less water. The scarcity of fresh water will get much worse, as population increases, a higher percentage live in the city, and they become more affluent. Worldwatch estimates that each person in 2050 will get only one-fourth as much fresh water as there was in 1950. Animals require water that humans also need. As a farm boy my job in summer included drawing buckets of water for 20 or 30 cows and several horses. Each cow drank at least five gallons of water. Much of the world’s irrigated farmland is used to grow grain or grass for animals. Alfalfa for animals requires more irrigation water per acre than almost any food crop. One way to reduce the agricultural use of water is to have fewer animals, eat less meat. During my recent travels in Syria I heard many complaints about Turkey’s construction of a large system of dams, upstream on the Euphrates River. Sometimes there is only enough water remaining to operate a few of the generators at Syria’s Assad Dam. Syria can control the Orontes River, flowing north through Lebanon into Turkey, but it is much smaller than the Euphrates. Poor countries, like China, usually burn coal in power plants and in homes, as Western Europe and the US did 50 years ago. Coal may be cheap but the air pollution causes all kinds of respiratory problems.
Too Many Animals; Disappearing Fish. Farm animals are popular in much of the world, because most people like to eat meat. However, meat is an inefficient source of food. In the US, pigs require about seven pounds of grain to provide a pound of meat, cattle require 4.8 pounds of grain, chickens eat 2.8 pounds, and dairy cattle require only 0.1 pounds of grain to produce a pound of milk--they eat more grass. Many vegetables have almost as much food value as meat and they use less land and energy to produce. All farm animals do much damage to the environment. They pollute the air with methane and carbon dioxide. Animal manure can be useful for manure or fuel. But in excess, as in many dairies and cattle feeding yards, it is a pollutant, especially for fresh water supplies. Fish is getting scarcer and more expensive everywhere. Up and down the Amazon I was told that the fish are getting smaller, fewer large fish are being caught. The worldwide catch is going down. Over-fishing, big nets, water pollution, and wasteful methods of catching or killing fish have taken their toll. Long nets catch every living creature in their path, not just the fish sought. Nets that are designed to stay near the bottom even catch any plants. Using them cleans out the sea, as clear-cutting and not replanting cleans out a forest. The worldwide catch of salt water fish is far below 100 million metric tons, the fresh water catch is less than one-third as much. Fish farming has been unable to fill the gap lost as fishing areas become depleted.
Mine Wastes. They have done much damage in the US and Canada, but far more damage in poor countries. Butte, Montana, had the “richest hill on Earth” before the copper was almost all mined. Now the big hole is perhaps the “biggest cesspool on Earth,” with a cocktail of chemicals that is too dangerous to remove. Cyanide is often used to leach out valuable gold from other minerals. But if the deadly chemical gets into a stream or underground water, anyone drinking it is likely to have a short life. Albania has a few oil wells, but, like many former socialist countries, there is terrible pollution. Much of the oil is wasted, it flows in ditches along roads. From a jet plane flying over South America it is easy to spot the bare hills ruined by careless mining and erosion.
Potential Nuclear Disasters. The nuclear bomb may have saved my life and the life of many others who were in the Merchant Marine and the armed services in 1945. The Japanese were great fighters, and they fought even more determined as American troops approached their homeland. But we often wish that nuclear weapons and nuclear power had never been invented. I recently visited Hiroshima, Japan, where the first nuclear weapon was used. I visited Kiev, Ukraine a year after the disaster in April 1986 at nearby Chernobyl. I heard many stories near Kiev about how families had been assured by the government that children would be unharmed if they finished the school year in nearby schools. Now many of them have died of leukemia and related diseases. Nuclear energy has caused many other near disasters. Many of the fuel storage tanks are leaking at Hanford, Washington, the nuclear waste may have entered groundwater. It will be dangerous for thousands of years. When I visited Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1995, the Russian military had just vacated several missile and other nuclear sites. Local environmentalists said the contamination in some areas is so great that it is not safe to visit. I saw a nuclear plant in Bulgaria that is said to be almost identical to the Chernobyl reactors. Bulgarians said they expect a disaster at any time. The US and Russia each have enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilization. War between the major nuclear powers may be preventable. But it is not difficult for a “terrorist” group to acquire nuclear weapons. A weapons market near Vilnius, Lithuania, sells former Soviet weapons to almost anyone who has a bundle of cash and armed guards. Sales of the most powerful weapons are advertised on the internet.
Free Trade. Agreements between nations to encourage trade often ignore environmental problems. Any law that a nation enacted to protect the environment, the health of citizens, or the welfare of local workers restricts the ability of a manufacturer or grower to produce a product, or it increases the cost of production. Under current free trade agreements, such a law is likely to be found in violation of trade agreements. A group of officials of corporations and non-elected government officials, meeting in secret, have the power to make invalid any law that protects the environment or workers. Short-term profits for corporations is more important than the welfare of people.
Wars and Refugees. Recently around 125 million people worldwide have had to move because of hunger, drought, discrimination, bad government, or war--they became refugees. I have visited refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza where three generations of innocent victims have been required to live their lives. The most common cause of malnutrition, illness, and other suffering is war. During the 20th Century there were at least 30 wars at almost anytime, now there are around 60 wars. Many of the wars are fought within a country. Wars are begun by a nation or tribe that wants more land, to eliminate another ethnic group, to become independent, or to control some valuable resource--pure greed. In the near future wars are likely to be fought over scarce fresh water. A rich country can always be found that is willing to buy the rich diamonds, gold, or other valuable minerals from the conquered area. Many boundaries in Africa and Asia were drawn by Europeans, ignoring tribal boundaries. Members of a tribe or ethnic group often consider members of a rival tribe or ethnic group to be the enemy. As overcrowding becomes worse the shortage of land will get worse. During my first visit to Togo and Ghana I learned that a medium-size tribe was pushed out of their traditional homeland by a stronger tribe. They crossed the border into Ghana, where they were said to have killed everyone in 30 villages. They moved in, taking control of homes, growing crops, and animals. Some 200 million people were killed as a direct result of wars in the 20th Century. Nearly two-thirds of those killed were civilians. The number killed tells little about the suffering of the survivors, from physical harm, fear, sickness, and malnutrition. I traveled in Europe near the end of World War II, when it was dangerous and in ruins. Modern warfare seems to be designed to make civilians suffer. During wartime farmers may not plant a crop, for they don’t know who will harvest it. Civilians suffer from a shortage of food. Land mines make an area unusable for farming or any purpose. Civilized countries should not use them. The US is one of the few countries that refuses to stop using land mines. Valuable arable land is wasted, made unusable for centuries. In Cambodia I saw many men and children with one or both legs missing, blown off by a land mine. The Falkland Islands have 200 large areas that are off-limits to anyone because of land mines planted by the invading Argentine army in 1982. Most of those areas can be used by sheep and sheep dogs.
War is exciting. People become patriotic, there are more jobs, and some business people and politicians become rich. Hitler told German industrialists he could get their factories humming again; he told the people they would have jobs, and Germans could regain their dignity. A leader who conquers more territory and kills more people may be called "great," like Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, or Genghis Khan. Only later do people realize how horrible the war was. People were killed, there are many suffering wounded, women were raped, there are many hungry people and orphan children, cities are in ruins; homes, museums, universities, and other cultural institutions are damaged or destroyed, and individual human rights are trampled upon. Limited natural assets, such as coal and oil, are used up at an alarming rate. The air, water, and soil become hopelessly polluted Nations accrue huge debts that result in a lower standard of living for almost everyone for many decades. Man seems to have a propensity for violence. Perhaps it is a fault in our genes. In many traditional societies, such as the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, or on many Pacific islands, men are always fighting their neighbors, to get women or control of territory, or in a revenge or "payback" war. Native Americans, both in the Eastern forests and Western plains, were often fighting neighboring tribes. Excessive population--more people than the land can comfortably support--often leads to war. Hitler wanted more "living room" for Germans. On Easter Island the increasing population, food shortage (few could catch fish, due to control of the seashore by a few and loss of trees to make boats), and loss of the means to escape led to cannibalism and continuous fighting. Modern transportation and other technology make everyone a neighbor, so we have the ability to create and fight more "enemies," even those far away
Vanuatu, warrior seeking peace carries a parma palm limb
If a small effort is made to tolerate or compromise differences with other nations, we can avoid much suffering. I can get along with most people in the more than 215 countries I have traveled in. Our politicians could also. Peace makers should be rewarded more than war makers. "Macho" men must redirect their energy toward something other than war. Possibilities include competitive sports, improving the life of everyone on our little planet, or learning more about our fascinating universe.
Military Weapons versus Peace. Wars should not be allowed to start. Once started, there should be a strong international military force to stop that war. The United Nations must be strengthened, to fill that role. The US for a long time refused to pay part of what the US owes to the UN, thus weakening the UN. However, the US voted for far more additional money for the military than the UN debt. The US continues to spend more each year for the military than any other eight countries combined, according to a study by the Toronto Globe and Mail in 2000. Since then, the US has greatly increased its military spending. The sale of war material to other than a long-standing ally in danger of being attacked, should be prohibited by international law. However, the US, for many years, has been the world’s major supplier of immoral weapons to maim and kill military personnel plus civilian men, women, and children. I have traveled in 12 war zones, from Guatemala and Nicaragua to Cambodia and Sri Lanka. I observed that many weapons sold by the US and other countries are used by an unpopular government against opponents, to remain in power.
Disease and Suffering. Overcrowding contributes to the spreading of diseases. In the US, heart disease, cancer, and stroke are the main killers. Worldwide, heart disease kills about eight million, strokes kill five million, acute respiratory infections kill four million, Aids (HIV) kills fifteen million (mostly in Africa), tuberculosis kills about two million, measles kills over a million children yearly, hepatitis B kills nearly as many victims, pregnancy related problems kill more than half a million women, and tetanus kills half a million victims. Malaria kills around two million each year. Around five million people die each year from diarrhea, dysentery, or cholera, often caused by drinking impure water. Perhaps one-third of the people in the world never see a trained physician during their lifetime. Many of the causes of death could be prevented by immunizations but they are not available or are too expensive. Many other victims suffer from the above diseases and lose much time from work, but do not die from the disease.
Natural and Other Disasters. There is always the possibility of a major natural disaster. A big asteroid could hit Earth, perhaps ending most life, as dinosaurs were probably killed. A major volcano could erupt, sending dust and debris into the atmosphere. It could cause the Earth to cool, reducing the agricultural season in much of the world, causing much starvation. A big earthquake is likely in several areas, including the US West Coast and central Mississippi Valley. Property damage could be much greater than the quake in San Francisco in 1989, Los Angeles in 1994, or Kobe in 1995, but, at most, only a few thousand people would be killed. The major nuclear powers could become involved in a fight to the finish, with nuclear weapons, ending civilization quickly. In today’s age of widespread immigration and jet planes, an outbreak of a deadly virus, such as Africa’s Ebola virus or Asia's "bird flu," could spread quickly around the world. "Terrorists" could wage biological warfare against a particular ethnic group by developing a means to destroy only particular genes, or they could kill everyone in a large area by the spread of powerful viruses. Terrorists could shut down any country that is advanced technologically by breaking computer security codes and spreading damaging viruses, or by powerful radio waves. Among services that could be shut down are military and police communications, airline traffic control, the banking and investment systems, and the distribution of electricity, food, water, and other goods. However, I am optimistic in believing that none of those major disasters will occur in the near future.
Planet Earth Is Like Easter Island. My small group visited Easter Island with two anthropologists. They explained that the trees were cut to make rollers to transport the big stone moai or statues. As population expanded, there was no wood to make fishing boats, there was no way to leave the island. Soon there was a serious shortage of food. They began to eat each other. Survivors lived in constant fear. During my worldwide travels, I became aware that our little planet is like Easter Island. Human beings are amazingly adaptable to different conditions. But if present practices continue civilization has little chance to continue beyond another 100 years. To continue civilization, world population must be reduced to about four million, the 1975 population, by reducing the birth rate. In most countries the best way to reduce the birth rate voluntarily is better education of women and girls. Information about birth control, and abortions, must be readily available, free if unable to pay, to all women and girls of child-bearing age. The countries with the highest birth rates, many African and Islamic countries, often have little education for girls. If the planet is required to support fewer people, ends all wars, eliminates waste, and conserves water, land, and other natural resources, it can maintain or improve the standard of living for everyone and reduce the chances of destroying the environment and civilization.
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