The greatest challenge humanity has ever faced

Humanity is facing a challenge that is beyond anything it has faced before. This challenge transcends all social, political, cultural, religious, national, and political boundaries. The most daunting aspect of this challenge is that it requires cooperation among all factions of all of these divisive boundaries. Global human overpopulation affects us all. Taking responsibility for addressing this problem is contrary to the interests of many of these factions. Many cultures and religions consider procreation a blessing to be enjoyed to it's fullest. Family values are seen as justification for multiple offspring. In some areas child mortality rates have greatly improved, while historic procreation rates remain high, increasing family size.

All of the diverse reasons to ignore the problem of overpopulation have caused our numbers to soar. Our planet is suffering under the pressures of all of these consumers. We must create a new procreational paradigm. The focus should be on the young, for they are, or will be, the procreators. We must focus their attention on the quality of life that will be available for their child(ren). All procreators are responsible for their own contribution to the problem of overpopulation. Procreators that ignore this new paradigm can have a huge impact when multiplied by potentially billions.

Economics must not be allowed to provide an excuse for continuing our population growth. The economic model of each successive generation being larger than the last and propping up the economy of the previous generation is unsustainable. We must change those institutions that rely on this model. This will be a transitional change, so it must start now.

If we as humans do not want procreation limited by laws, as China has done, then we must actively promote the cause of small family size and limited procreation by choice. If this is not accomplished, on a global scale, there will be a need to create legal limits in the future by all countries worldwide. This will create a situation where cultures clash. We must act now to promote limited procreation globally across all cultural and political borders.

In order for this necessary change in our collective attitude towards family size we must add this issue to our social discourse. In doing so, we must “come out of the closet” and be willing to discuss the matter openly.  Breaking the taboo of speaking about family size is important.  While doing so, it is important that we focus on the “unconceived”. Educating the young is the most important goal. It is irrelevant to confront those who already have large families, other than to educate about overpopulation and prevent them from having additional children if they are still in the childbearing years. No one should ever be directly critical of children already born. That's water under the bridge. The focus needs to be on the future.

As we become more vocal about the responsibility of all humans to limit our procreation within our own culture, we are then in a more viable position to spread the discussion to other cultures. Some of these other cultures are increasing their populations at an alarming rate. There is no time to lose in educating these cultures. Educating women has been shown to be the most effective way to decrease reproductive rates.

There must be a international discussion on overpopulation that supercedes any political, economic, or cultural interests.  There are those who consider the choice of family size a human rights issue.  That must change.  The greater human right must become the right to live on a planet that has a sustainable human population.