Smail says that it would take at least two to three generations for the population to be at a stable level because of the “powerful population momentum” (414). The fact that nearly one third of the world population is under the age of fifteen and has not yet reproduced. When Smail is talking about the Earth carrying capacity he looks at it in terms of resources and it long-term. The resources that he is talking about is inexpensive energy from fossil fuels, food supplies from plant or animal, raw material such as wood and minerals, fresh water, and readily accessible open space. Smail is referring to long-term as over the span of several hundred years. Over that time frame he states that it “is rapidly coming to a close” (415). His solution to solving the problem is, to have a fully effective program of zero population growth but this will not stop the momentum of the population, unless there is a deadly pandemic or a devastating world war. I think that Smail mean by his statement is that this Earth does not belong to us and we should treat it as such. We need to find a way to control our population so we don’t over run the Earth. We are the stewards of the Earth and we need to do a better job at it, because the way I see it, we are going to force ourselves into starvation or worse, extinction. BY BARRY
Exploring Society Blog at BCC
\"It can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this: things are not what they seem. \" Peter L. Berger
I definitely agree. I know in third world countries they do not have a lot of education in order to prevent producing. Here in America, we have that privilege to know, and yet teenagers are still getting pregnant. The worst part is, there are shows now that are glamorizing teen pregnancy. We need to do something or things will get much, much worse
If the population continues growing at the rate it is growing now we will deplete the earths resources to the point of no return. Although we may be able to use science to our advantage in patching up resource issues when they arrise, eventually even science will not be able to save us. While Smail makes an extremely valid point that a program of zero population growth would be a step in the right direction for obtaining balance of the overall population. However while this may seem like the obvious solution to overpopulation, implementing a program of zero population growth would rid Americans of the freedom that this country was built upon. We have to be careful that while we are attempting to fix one problem, we do not create another. Controlling the amount of births in the United States would turn it into more of a Communistic economy, giving Americans much less freedom than ever before. As Roger Bengston, (founding board memberof World Population Balance) said: “The point of population stabilization is to reduce or minimize misery” and while a program of zero population growth would slow down the population growth issue, creating more control within a society would not reduce or minimize misery.