The Late, Great Population Issue

I remember growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, a lot was written and discussed concerning population and population control. The idea was, that sooner rather than later there were going to be more people alive on Earth than the planet could sustain. But for some reason, that notion seems to have completely disappeared in recent decades. Yet, I think, many of the problems that are on our radar are a direct result of the exploding human population. Food shortages, energy prices, illegal immigration and global warming are just some of the issues that have roots in nearly unchecked population growth. But no one is talking about it.

35 or 40 years ago, the Catholic Church was subject to a lot of criticism for its stands against any form of birth control. Many Catholic third world countries were seeing an expansion of their population, and the resulting furthering of poverty, while the Catholic Church made it a sin to practice birth control. I always found (and still do find) that to be incredibly irresponsible. But again, I don’t hear much about that anymore.

I just think that it’s time we revisit the idea of controlling the population a bit better than we do now. I’m not sure how we lost focus on it in the first place, but it’s time we rediscover an “old” problem.