A call to interpretation
This is the most abused and misunderstood of the tenants. Each site I go to starts off pointing out that 500 millions is a drop compared to the over 6 billions on earth. They also suggest that this tenant is telling us in a nice way we need to go out and cull the herd, or slaughter billions of human beings right now for this to work.
No where in this line does it suggest or put forth a method of achieving this goal. It does suggest, however, that 500 million is the best (optimal) number of human beings to coexist with nature - naturally.
That is very different that telling us to go out and kill 9 out of 10 people. It offers a suggestion based upon what we know to be facts and to be fully and completely natural methods to feed, clothe, water, shelter, provide medical care and the love and attention that each person needs in order to be a complete human being.
Over population of Earth is a clear and present danger. Our ability to feed clothe and shelter all of our numbers is woefully lacking. Today 842 million people across the world are hungry. 798 million people in the developing world are undernourished. They consume less than the minimum amount of calories essential for sound health and growth.
Poor nutrition and calorie deficiencies cause nearly one in three people to die prematurely or have disabilities, according to the World Health Organization. 11 million children younger than 5 die every year, more than half from hunger-related causes.
Those who are fed are fed foods which are grown in unnatural ways, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and other various technological inventions make it possible to feed, and ship that food. We are genetically altering food, making hybrids, plowing under vast tracts of land, using tractors, irrigation, damming, hormones, injecting and stacking animals on top of one another to provide a fraction of the total population on earth with all their daily dietary needs.
Further, we are sustaining our ill built civilization relying on dwindling supplies of oil to ship large quantities to cement holding cells for our population. The majority of us live in huge, sprawling cities relying on plumbing, trains, ships, trucks to bring in what we need to survive.
Each large city of man has enough food in it to sustain it for 1 week, if rationed. Should anything stop the line of supply from getting through, natural disaster, war, etc. that city will suffer from lack of basic supplies (food) in one week's time - IF the populace remains calm and does not horde, riot or panic. Medicines, water, energy for heating all are supplied per day to meet the days needs. Take out a single service, you end up with severe civilian problems.
Each home has an estimated 3 day supply of food. This is an average number. Some people have more than a month's supply of food; others have no food presently in their pantry.
This is an unnatural system, relying heavily upon technology, relying heavily upon good conditions to make most of these services continue. We were given a small taste of the problems that can take place when the East coast had its black out. The official story was "Oops" the unspoken story is that this could have been worse, far worse and could easily be repeated through accident or intent. Next time it could be worse, a lot worse than we imagine.
Food alone is at a premium, is not sustained naturally, and is not readily had by all members of our species.
The recommended number of 500 million is put against the natural way of raising food, without technology and chemicals. This is what this first guidelines means. It is placed against the available fertile land, the ability of natural seed, against the natural ravages that pests, weeds, and bad weather can do to a crop. Placed against a lack of tractors, and other heavy machinery to till vast tracts of land.
Again This is balance with nature, no tractors, no irrigation, no pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, no genetically altered foods, no hybrids, and no warehouse animal farms. The Natural, clean, hands on method of farming can only sustain 500 million individuals.
Don't believe me? Do the research, find out how dependant our crops are on chemicals, tractors, irrigation, dams, genetic and hybrid seeds, stacking and warehousing animals, hormone injections, advanced veterinarian skills, new antibiotics for animals, tagging, reprocessing of waste material (Think mad cow causes there). Then research how California produces � of the National supply of food. How does it get from California to New York City?
We use many unnatural methods to feed ourselves. This is out of balance with nature and in some cases is dangerous. We found that out through the use of DDTs, which turned around and leeched into lakes and rivers, and into the ecology threatened many species even the National Symbol, the American Bald Eagle.
Our population - with technology - can sustain more. If we have tractors and irrigation the number goes up to 1 billion. If we add genetically altered foods, 2 billion. If we add fertilizers (chemical) pesticides, herbicides, etc we can sustain 3 billion human beings with the minimal amount of calories, minerals and nutrition.
However each additional technological support comes with its own set of problems, problems which are accumulative and can at any time be susceptible to accident or disaster which would lead to starvation.
A reasonable species, a species who thinks and reduces the risks and takes responsibility and seeks to make certain that these consequences don't turn around and harm us in the end, would take out as many of these artificial support systems and would opt for micro- organic farming closer to the populations that need the food and would, through positive channels, start reducing its numbers to the point where the organic methods of food production would place food on all the tables of all of those individuals in the population.
Vast cargo shipping enabled our civilization to make huge cities which are sustained by outside resources at all times. This is unnatural and is out of balance with nature. If we add this to the mix we can add another billion, making 4 billion humans sustained at optimal nutritional health. This is closer to the reality of our world today, 4 billion know no hunger. The rest are subject to lack of proper food, lack of proper nutrition, are charity cases where other nations send grain (and in many cases only grain, which leads to malnutrition), some are so poor that they can not, even under constant free shipments of food, get that food to those tribes, villages and individuals who need it most.
At no time in human history has everyone been granted full nutrition. People have been hungry, starving or victims of malnutrition through out human history, somewhere in the world.
The first Tenant of Humanism attempts to place importance on the need to supply all humans with the basics in life, food, clean water, shelter, clothing, and medical care. All of these are not available for all people. Even in the richest country on earth, the United States, hunger, homelessness, and lack of medical care are large issues. Even with all the technology supporting our food production, many people will die or be hungry today.
Should we elect to reduce our numbers, there is no need for us to select and kill a majority of the population. Maintaining humanity's numbers can be achieved through contraceptives and planned parenthood (choosing to have one child instead of 5) Reducing our numbers over the natural deaths (disease, old age, accident) and low voluntary birth rates is all we need to maintain our numbers.
This tenant of humanism is logical, rational and supports the ecology, the natural ecology. Should our species reach for space, creating artificial self sustaining space stations, self sustaining colonies on other planets and celestial bodies, then it would hold that the total human population would rise.
Should our species become better at raising and producing food, then our numbers should naturally be raised.
This tenant also causes the individual to seek out answers. Remember the number of 500 million is placed against what is known today, what we can do and how our society does these things. If we started looking at our cities and planning food crops instead of pretty flowers in those cities, we could naturally BALANCE out the number of people against the natural amount of food produced.
BUT, it is far more than just a food issue. Health care is not equally distributed through the world. Wealth is not balanced out, the ability to shelter, educate, clothe, feed and provide clean water to all our numbers clearly demonstrates that our present numbers are way too high for sustainability.
This tenant suggests that to be more humane to one another we need to make an active choice ON AN INDIVIDUAL level to curb our breeding habits and reduce the number of our species to a number which all who are living can enjoy these basic things.
Any one who argues this point further needs to be questioned. It is hard to imagine that after so many failures on the part of technology, the errors in the way we have conducted business before that anyone would place blind faith in our ability to continue to breed and find the food, medicine, water, etc for all people. It is the fool who will blindly condemn a balance between numbers and resources, while seeking to make a simple statement into a call to slaughter billions of living beings.
We note that the tenant does not tell us how to achieve this number in itself. However it is followed by the second tenant which not only offers a solution to our over population, but implies that we as individuals can, through wise reproduction change other aspects of our species.