|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
An Address to the Council
| Article
# : |
20219 |
|
|
Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
|
| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1992 |
4,022 Words |
| Author
: |
Ben Bova
Ben Bova has authored nearly eighty realistic books about the
future. His two latest novels are The Trikon Deception
(coauthored with astronaut Bill Pogue) and Mars. He is
president emeritus of the National Space Society and
president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He
resides in Naples, Florida. |
My fellow citizens of the world:
It is both an honor and a grave responsibility to assume the chairmanship of this newly formed World Council. The burdens that face us are immense. Our resources seem barely adequate to deal with the massive dislocations forced upon the world's people by population growth and climate shift.
Famine stalks much of the Southern Hemisphere. Even in the industrialized nations, life expectancies are declining. Civilization stands on the brink of a precipice, in danger of a fall from which it may never recover.
If I may have your indulgence, I want to review the more significant problems that beset us. I want to demonstrate how the interrelated nature of these problems has created a negative synergy that actually makes their totality much more difficult to solve than they would be as individual predicaments.
First, and foremost, is the continued explosive growth of world population. According to this morning's computer monitoring data, 10.7 billion human beings occupy Planet Earth. More than 60 percent of them live in urban areas. Overpopulation is outstripping the transportation facilities, water supplies, and food and waste removal systems of cities across the world. From New York City to Sao Paulo, from Cairo to Tokyo, the world's cities have become festering ghettos rife with crime, drugs, and despair.
By today's end, another three hundred thousand babies will have been born. Each of these human brings will require food, shelter, education, and means of self-support. Each of these factors, in turn, will make demands on the planet's natural resources and energy. As long as the world's population continues to grow unchecked, all our efforts to increase the Earth's productivity will continue to be swallowed up by the increasing numbers of hungry mouths.
Exacerbating the population problem is the problem of climate shift; as if the punishment for the sins of our fathers is being visited upon us. The pollution wrought by two and half centuries of industrialization has pushed global temperatures into true greenhouse levels. Lands that were once fertile are turning into deserts. Sea levels are rising all around the world, threatening hundreds of millions of families with inundation, which will force them to relocate. Annual monsoons and tropical storms have increased in ferocity, as anyone who lives in a coastal
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
