Shall we do a Genocide?
Tick.. Tick… Tick… Tick… When you hear this sound, what comes into your mind? Most probably a tune of a song you like. Or may be it triggered a past memory. Or may be it’s just a sound to you. What if I told you that each time you hear this sound, two people are going to die! Nope, I’m not starting a horror story. But I’m going to reveal an equally terrifying truth. Did you know that each second, two people in this world die?
But how? What causes people to die in this rapid rate? Well if we take a look at the numbers,
More than 7 million people die from heart diseases per year
Around 1.5 million people die due to AIDS
More than a million people die because of road injuries
Around half a million people die by violence
Modern world is based on wars! Bomb blasts, missile attacks kill people every day. We know how damaging a war can be. Many people died as victims of the 30 year war. But strange as it may seem, twice that count were killed due to car crashes! It’s like with the rapid development, we’re paving our way to extinction! Will we go extinct due to those? Yes actually we will! But not mainly because of any of those reasons!!!
Then what is the reason? What can cause such a disaster? A nuclear explosion? A meteor collision? Actually the truth is right before our eyes although we can’t see it. Let me explain it to you through this graph.
Ladies and gentlemen, consider the earliest age where human ancestors lived. Hit her in the head and take her home! Those were the days!!
It took the earth’s population thousands of years — from the early dawn of man all the way to the early 1800s — to reach one billion people. We’re well on track to reach eight billion very soon. Just today, the human race added another quarter-million people to planet Earth. A quarter million. And this happens every day — rain or shine. Currently, every year, we’re adding the equivalent of the entire country of Germany.
The demand for dwindling natural resources is skyrocketing. Clean water is harder and harder to come by. By any biological gauge, our species has exceeded our sustainable numbers. The WHO tried to address the problem by giving free birth control items in Africa. Then an army of Catholic missionaries marched in and told the Africans that if they used the condoms, they’d all go to hell. Africa has a new environmental issue now — landfills overflowing with unused condoms.
Okay, what if we try space colonization?
In the 20th century space exploration was the greatest race between the powerful nations. Moon, Mars, Jupiter… Everybody wanted to go there first! So from the first shuttle launch to today, how far have we come? The reality is we’re lagging behind all the predictions. Now as there is no heat in the space exploration race, powerful countries have reduced the money and resources allocated for it. Even Sri Lanka launched a satellite recently. If you were one of the people who was hoping to go to space in it, sorry to burst the bubble, but commercial satellites in Chinese orbit do not take people into space!
But when we look at other countries, they have achieved some goals regarding space colonization. Elon musk’s spaceX program will start sending humans to space very soon. Recently Musk stated that he hopes to send humans to Mars surface in the next 10–20 years. But after doing an analysis on what is needed for humanity to live on another planet, MIT engineers published a report. In their report they’ve stated that it will take longer than that due to the lack of required technology. So it looks like space colonization is a topic for the next century.
Any environmental biologist or statistician will tell you that humankind’s best chance of long-term survival occurs with a global population of around four billion. So is genocide our only option??
Oh come on! This is the to save the humanity! Don’t you like to die for that? Yep, me neither.
So what are our options?
I honestly don’t know. What I know is that there is another option and parts of that solution are reading this right now. Yes ladies and gentlemen, you are the creators of that option. If all brilliant minds in the world work together to form a solution, I believe this is something we can address. We won’t be the ones who’ll experience the success of our work. It’s our children and generations after that. Think of one day looking out of the beautiful world out there with your grandchild in your lap… If you can say to him, “Son, this is the world we saved for you. Every nation, every race, every man and woman worked hard to heal this world. I also played a part in making this world a better place.” I think that would be the greatest achievement of your life! So ladies and gentlemen time has come to save the world! Tick.. Tick.. Tick.. And do it fast!
Inspiration : Inferno by Dan Brown
