An oft-mentioned lab experiment involving the use of rats to emulate human behavior consisted of setting up a box of a defined, measured floor area. The box was deep enough to keep the rats inside it. The idea was to put a number of rats in the box and observe their behavior. The behavior was described using a predetermined set of criteria, and was recorded as the population density of the box (rats per square meter) was increased.

We can guess the outcome. As population density increased to a certain threshold point, the behavior of the population became more socially abnormal. All sorts of inter-rat social problems manifested, with ultimate violent behavior – the rat equivalent of homicide and worse. To me, all this seems intended to keep the population at or below a certain level so that the rat society can survive; even if it is uncomfortable, at least it does not lead to extinction.

I think that the earth, having a distinct and limited habitable space, is being overloaded by population increases. An exacerbating factor is loss of habitat due to the inherently destructive behavior of the inhabitants. We humans are pretty reckless in the way we treat the environment. Cut down every tree, catch every fish, pave every square meter of available space, and dump our waste products any place we can get away with. Almost always for some kind of profit. Let somebody else worry about the negative consequences – I don’t want to hear about them. The ocean is huge, so what’s all the excitement about? And so on…

There are many things happening now that seem extraordinary, and in my opinion can be linked to this overpopulation syndrome. I remember 25 years ago when the famines in Africa were occurring once in 10 years. Now they seem to be a constant happening. But then, the population has roughly doubled in those 25 years, in spite of the high risks of disease and violence.

AIDs came along, and it looked for awhile like it might be the answer to Africa’s population problem. But, the pharmaceutical industry came up with a product to treat it (expensive, of course) and thereby frustrated Mother Nature’s attempt to get things under control.

The fires in the coastal hills of southern California were once in a while events. Now they seem to be every year – soon to be all year? I wonder what insurance costs are like for a house in Malibu?

Wars are pretty much a constant feature of our time. They do tend to reduce population, no doubt about it. Are we going back to the pre-Christian era, when wars were constant between just about everybody on the planet? A measure of a man in those days was his performance as a warrior. The weapon of mass destruction in those days was the chariot, the long lance (sarissa) and the cross bow. Foot soldiers, archers and horse mounted cavalry and elephants were the old standbys. But in the last 100 years or so, war came to be looked down upon by many, and this causes a lot of tension between the rival factions of our society. Today the weapon of mass destruction is the Kalishnakov 1947 Assault rifle (AK-47), the world’s most popular and ubiquitous firearm.

Drugs became fashionable in the 1960’s. The baby boomers were 15-18 years old then. Is self-medication to relieve stress a symptom of box crowding? At the end of WW2, the US population was around 150 million. What is it now? It is at least double that. OK, so it’s not all birth rate. It matters not – you keep piling rats in the box, and no one asks you who their parents are or where they came from. I grew up in a drug-free society. Just imagine! That is no longer possible.

A micro indicator of weather is the size of Lake Chad in sub Saharan Africa. It cycles up and down in size over the centuries. When I was living in Africa in 1982-87, you could hardly find the lake. The locals said it changes a lot.

While living in Syria in the mid-1970’s the Syrians of northern Syria, on the banks of the Euphrates told how they’d heard tales of the caravans on the silk road riding through forests there in that pre-Christian era. In 1975 and now, that area is a desert. So climate change has been going on for thousands of years.

Al Gore won a prize for beating the global warming drum. Maybe he’s right. But weather cycles have been underway on earth for millennia, and it could be that we are in a part of the cycle that is the opposite of an Ice Age, whatever it might be called.

I wonder if the Vatican ever considers the environmental effect of their medieval policy on birth control? Does it even matter to them? I think it does; a high Catholic population count is good for business. The analysis of return on investment should also include a monetization of social costs. So no matter what we do, the box becomes more and more crowded. Let somebody else worry about it, I guess.

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