Guess how many people live on earth now? According to a recent article in National Geographic (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/seven-billion/kunzig-text/1), sometime late this year, there will be seven billion of us. And by 2045, there might be nine billion. Looks like we’ve all been busy since God gave Adam and Eve the command to be fruitful and increase in number (Genesis 1:28). But how many people can our planet support?
Before we all dust off our copy of Soylent Green (an interesting movie made in 1973 with Charlton Heston as the lead) and start thinking sad Malthusian thoughts, the article goes on to say that there is hope for us all. Firstly, with nine billion people living spread out all over the earth, ‘…the world population density will be a little more than half that of France today.’ Which means we won’t be all that crowded. Secondly, we are a pretty resourceful species. The green revolution and continuous advances in agricultural sciences will keep us going for a long time. There are limits however to what our planet can actually take and with the increase in the ‘global middle class’, the article points out that, ‘…it will be a hard thing for the planet if those people are eating meat and driving gasoline-powered cars at the same rate as Americans now do.’ In other words: we all need to live more simply if we’re going to make it.
For some of us, this could mean becoming a little more counter-cultural and getting less stuff. For he/she who dies with the most toys does not win. As Christians, our role model for the simple life is Jesus Christ. We know that He was an itinerant teacher who owned neither home nor property (Matthew 8:20) and as those who profess to follow in His footsteps, we should be considering what it means to live out our faith in a time of considerable affluence. St Elizabeth Seton, the first native born citizen of the United States to be canonized is quoted as saying, “Live simply that others might simply live.” Something maybe for us to ponder for 2011 as we welcome in citizen 7,000,000,001.
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