Breedin’ hell
* Give birth generously
* Condemn condoms
* Instigate irresponsible sex
* Abolish abortion
Obliterating the earth should, on occasion, be fun, and there is no more dependable means than the charms of procreation. Get involved. Woo a willing partner, agree on the merits of an unfeasibly large family, and you’re off.
At the time of writing, 6,783,258,547 people are on this planet. Hold on, make that 6,783,258,653. The pace at which new faces keep surfacing is one of the more heartening certainties of modern times. When the initial death toll of the 2004 Asian tsunami was declared as 200,000, few people realized that more people had, in fact, been born that day. In the aftermath of the greatest natural disaster of modern times, the planet’s population stayed broadly the same. In the moments it takes to read this chapter, another 800 mouths to feed will – fingers crossed – have materialized.
The United Nations agrees on the one inevitable result of this constant conveyor-belt of humanity: ‘large-scale, catastrophic ecosystem collapse’. The very words are better than sex. Current breeding rates must be maintained if we are to hurtle inexorably towards unsustainable oblivion. You should be optimistic. Governments can influence many things but, let’s face it; one thing they’re not going to curb is people having sex. Indeed, it would be even more helpful if they were to limit contraception. Large families, after all, are to be rejoiced. Don’t hold fire at two or four. Have seven. Why stop at nine when ten will do?
During your lifetime, it is predicted that a population equivalent to ten times that of Western Europe will squeeze on to the planet, with every new arrival keen to live and consume as voraciously as you or I. Ten times as many cars, a thousand times more aeroplanes and goodness knows how many extra electric waffle-makers will be required. Soon we will need half as much again in food, land and energy just to stand still. When man first landed on the moon, just three billion people lived on the planet below. Authoritative projections anticipate that, by the middle of the twenty-first century, 9.5 billion people will be groping for a living on earth. If supplies of contraceptives are not improved, the planet’s population will reach thirty billion over the next three hundred years. It is a laughable prediction. The earth cannot contemplate surviving for even a fraction of that timeframe. Within twenty years she’ll be wishing it was all over. The planet is there for the taking. Go forth and multiply.
Unprotected sex has emerged as an unerringly effective instrument for advancing ecological collapse. And, as fortune would dictate, a massive shortage of condoms has emerged in the precise location where the planet’s ongoing baby-boom is the most pronounced. Couples in sub-Saharan Africa are no more promiscuous than couples elsewhere, it’s just that when they get down to business it has a habit of producing results. There, in the arid belt across the midriff of Africa, less than a third of couples have access to contraception. Seven billion condoms are required every year in the developing world but only 724 million condoms are currently distributed to the region from Western countries. This works out as 4.6 a year for every man. With blokes claiming to have sex 103 times on average a year (so they say), the prospects for procreation remain firmly stacked towards the positive.
According to a parliamentary inquiry, 99 per cent of future population growth will occur in the developing world. Africa’s population has exploded. Hundreds of thousands of extra children are demanding the earth’s resources. By mid-century, a quarter of the world’s population will hail from Africa, compared to one in seven now. Until world leaders invent a way of curbing sexual appetites, the babies will just keep on coming. Ironically, in the same inquiry, condoms and birth-control pills were identified as the only realistic weapon to stem this rising tide of humanity.
Presumably keen to ensure that growth rates remain high, European countries are reticent to increase family-planning funding to the continent. Britain is among those paralysed by the moral quandary in which it finds itself. Although Britain donates a total of £60 million to fund family-planning schemes in Africa and Asia, exports of contraception masquerade under the fight against the spread of HIV and Aids. The amount has, in real terms, fallen over the last six years, but officials rule out any plans to increase funding. A welcome policy, if your primary motive is to accelerate planetary blight. Even the most modest increase to funding would yield an impressive return. Analysis reveals that every £500,000 donated might prevent 362,000 unwanted pregnancies. With the right connections, birth control comes fairly cheap. A spare £1 million is enough for governments to procure 1.1 million condoms at cost-price, or 153,800 months’ worth of female contraceptive pills. It does not even bear thinking about how many babies would have been nipped in the bud had the West increased its family-planning and anti-HIV support.
Pope Benedict XVI is a particularly useful asset. The role of the Roman Catholic church cannot be underestimated when his total ban on condoms ensures that around one billion believers, almost a seventh of the world’s population, with 400 million in Africa alone, remain theologically opposed to lowering the earth’s birth rates. Unfortunately, it must be conceded that, partly as a result, eight thousand people a day are dying from Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases, but the net population growth remains reassuringly generous nevertheless. Praise, also, to the Vatican’s stance on abortion. Who knows how many unwanted babies have come into the world as a result.
No corner of the planet will escape the population explosion. In Britain, five million environmental refugees from countries such as Uganda are forecast to squeeze in among the sixty million people currently shoe-horned into our overcrowded island over the next two decades. The United Nations’ eight much-trumpeted millennium development objectives to halve global poverty and environmental degradation by 2015 actually omit population as a primary goal, a canny decision that has diverted billions of pounds away from tackling the issue. Tony Blair’s influential ‘Commission for Africa’ report, a blueprint for alleviating ecological stress on the continent, likewise glosses deftly over the full impact of the population explosion.
In the West, encouraging people to procreate irresponsibly is a tad trickier. A moral campaign, using slick PR-type slogans and backed by political lobbyists, might be required to affirm the traditional virtues of liberalism. Its message should be simple, advocating a return to a golden age of ‘free love’, an era when sex without all the paraphernalia of contraception is deemed the one true expression of intimacy. In the UK, challenging mainstream hang-ups about sex might in fact prove to be among your best strategies to hasten ecological breakdown. You should be thankful that Britain’s youths are sane enough to resist the evangelism that has spawned virginity clubs among teenagers throughout the US. British teenagers are, in fact, the least likely of all to need encouraging when it comes to irresponsible sex. Even before the need for more babies has been articulated, UK youngsters have risen enthusiastically to the task. Not only are they the most sexually active in Europe, they also boast the continent’s highest teenage-pregnancy rates. MPs might want to give more free condoms to teens, but getting them to use them is a different matter altogether.
Elsewhere, large-scale attempts to reduce population rates are dead in the water. China’s one-child policy will prove politically impossible to introduce elsewhere. Even so, the country’s population grows by an applaudable ten million a year. India’s attempts to encourage the snip can be shrugged aside in a country whose numbers escalate every year by a figure equal to the entire population of Australia. Millions of couples have never even heard of condoms. Research reveals that condoms made to international sizes are too big for most Indian men.
Other measures to encourage more babies need to be floated by liberal political think-tanks. Duff contraceptives are one option. Scores of Chinese factories have been caught producing fake birth-control pills made from starch and glucose, a combination that provided couples with the requisite energy and an unexpected surprise nine months later. Hail South Korea, which reimburses IVF treatment to increase fertility rates. The Japanese government – whose health minister candidly refers to women as ‘birth-giving machines’ – has even sponsored speed-dating groups to lure lovers together. France has become Europe’s most fertile country, because successive governments have encouraged women to work and have children, rather than to choose between the two.
Overall, sexual appetites show little sign of waning and there is an enduring disregard for contraception, even where it is widely available. A final word of appreciation to the millions who will continue to indulge in unprotected sex. Their courageous efforts alone sustain the daily arrival of 216,000 babies every day. Without them, the planet’s future would be just that little bit brighter.
* Catholic church reverses its uncompromising attitude towards condoms. Unlikely.
* People, including a new generation of teenagers, stop having irresponsible sex. Not a prayer.
* Western states significantly increase supply of condoms to Africa and Asia as US starts supporting family-planning clinics. Inconceivable.
* Governments speak out over need to stabilize global population growth. Unlikely.
* Population expands faster than predicted, with the 7 billion barrier broken quicker than even most optimistic predictions. Condoms in Africa become more elusive than pockets of tranquillity. Conceivable.
Likelihood of unsustainably high population growth: 96%