As a kid I carried water to the chicken coop each morning in a glass gallon jug. In the winter the water was quite hot. For an eight year old, the jug was heavy and I set it down to rest in the snow. Mysteriously the glass shattered to pieces. Today I feel another contrast too great and like the glass I am shattering.
I grew up convinced the human race was multiplying. More than just conventional wisdom, it was Malthusian science… it was biblical as in ” Go forth and multiply”. Population was projected to double every 25 years on into infinity. Soon every inch of dry land would be inhabited – crowded with starving people standing on each other’s toes. They’d be stacked up on top of each other in condo towers. Editorials, books and talking heads of my day opined as to what our doomed race was going to do.
Then, suddenly, within one lifetime, this zeitgeist started to fall apart like my chicken water jug. That script did not work out as expected. The boom seems to be turning into a bust. Fertility is not only declining, the decline is accelerating in a number of countries.
You’re not ready to lose sleep over the human race extinction on earth, but at least think about it. Project out to infinity the fertility trend in Russia and many countries in Asia, Americas, and Europe. Less native births than deaths and the planet becomes lonely. The oldies go and there’s not enough babies to replace them. Who is going to run the place? What will the hood look like then?
*Lights out in empty cities.
*Congestion free highways.
*Nobody shows up on the field or in the stands for Super Bowls.
*Old people won’t attend rock concerts so the mosh pit will be empty.
* With nobody there, who will know Shakespeare, Leonardo, Beethoven, Elvis, or the Kardashians? Gone, gone, gone!
The plants, bugs, worms and mice have the place to themselves. It will be different!
For environmentalists, a world free of garbage landfill, greenhouse gasses, and habitat destruction, would be paradise. But environmentalists will be gone too.
For me, I’m still thinking about why the glass suddenly fell apart. How can a “boom apocalypse” based in science and confirmed by the word of god, become a “bust apocalypse” in so little time?