AN AGENDA FOR EARTH by Chaumont Devin May 12, 1993 What kind of earth do you envision for the year 3000? How would you like the idea of an earth in which there is abundant wilderness with pure and rushing mountain streams, an abundance of all manner of natural species, and humanity in its full flower of cultural and ethnic diversity living in harmony with nature and itself? This vision, barring any drastic intervention from outside the solar system, is now well within our grasp. Mankind is coming of age. No longer are we living in nomadic tribes relying opportunistically upon the providence of forest and stream. We have learned cultivation. We have lain down the socialogical and technical infrastructure that has enabled us to build cities. In short, we have the mastery of our environment and of our own lives. And yet there are lessons that remain to be learned. We tend to rely heavily on reason when it comes to business affairs, but we often return to basic instinct in the most important decisions affecting our lives. For example, some of us are slowly realizing that violence and conquest are not our god-given right, while others remain brazenly unconvinced. But the institution that most urgently and dangerously threatens our above vision of a harmonious earth is not organized violence, as one might expect. It might be argued that warfare is more often triggered by limited resources than by greed, and is the RESULT rather than the CAUSE of certain problems. In particular, many anthropologists might argue that warfare is the end result of a single problem, and plays a CONSTRUCTIVE rather than a DESTRUCTIVE role in the evolution of mankind. In warfare, the weak and less competent die, withdrawing their genes from the gene pool, and allowing the stronger and better adapted to survive. But perhaps most importantly of all, warfare has served the purpose of thinning out the human population, thus leaving a greener, roomier, healthier earth for those who survive. This brings us at last to an examination of the institution that really threatens the future of planet earth in an immediate and unprecedented way. It is not the right to attack and kill, but the right TO REPRODUCE. The population of planet earth is expected to reach 5.5 billion by the middle of this year. Grasslands and forests are disappearing under a blanket of concrete. Entire languages, cultures, and ethnic groups are being erased by a new, homogeneous culture that seems destined to pervade everything and everywhere. Untold biological ecosystems and entire species are being lost. Yet the human population is increasing faster than ever before. The current rate is 90,000,000 people per year, and rising fast. Each additional human being requires the appropriation of still more grassland and forest and the application of yet more chemicals and salts to the already-tortured earth. What dog lover would like to see the abolishment of canine pedigree and the interbreeding of all the dogs of the world so as to produce one and only one homogeneous dog-kind? Such an idea would seem outrageous and unthinkable for dogs, and yet that is exactly where we are headed as human beings. The "right to reproduce" institution is not only a problem of cataclismic environmental destruction. It is a direct threat to the very laboratory of human development. What would our world be now without the ethnic and cultural diversity of the past? All peoples would look and think more or less alike. Egyptian and Chinese civilization would never have become Egyptian and Chinese civilization, and without the cultural diversity from which western civilization sprang, we would almost certainly be living in a modern iron age. Our greatest strength, intelligence, and beauty (if indeed we may presume to possess strength, intelligence, or beauty) spring from that very characteristic we know as our DIVERSITY. With the collapse of the former Soviet Union, it is imperative that the world's great military powers move swiftly to curb the traditional outbreaks of violence that have been part of human history in the past. After the decades-long threat of mutually assured destruction, and the experiences of World Wars II and I, we must see that the right to make war is no longer appropriate at this time. Our ancestors killed one another selectively at close range, man to man; but when entire cities can be razed at the push of a button, it is simply too dangerous to wage war. Yet we are faced with a threat just as real as nuclear war. Obsessed with a desire to alleviate human suffering, we have eradicated smallpox and tamed the dread diseases that once thinned our ranks. At the same time we have done nothing to seriously compensate for the impact of modern medicine upon the whole of mankind. In tampering with nature we have been guilty of gross negligence of the facts. Specifically, we have failed to provide for the possibility of a human population with numbers spiralling out of control. We have persisted in perfecting our ability to preserve human life to the point where we are in danger of losing all else. If we are to eliminate the wars and diseases that kept our populations in check, then it is imperative that we limit human reproduction as well. In short, the right to reproduce is just as inappropriate as the right to wage war in our time. Our vision for the year 3000 is still quite within the realm of possibility, but slipping fast. The problem is that overpopulation is causing irreversable damage to the earth. As a matter of fact, unless something is done very quickly, by the year 3000, there may not even be any more forests, or ethnic diversity, or grass. And without grass, no cows, and without cows no milk or beef or cheeze. How much time do we have? The forests may all be gone by 2100, ethnic, cultural, and linguistical diversity by 2200. What must be done? The right people must be convinced that human reproduction is a PRIVELAGE, not a RIGHT. Laws must then be swiftly enacted to mandate a mechanism whereby all newborn infants with the exception of a minority selected for reproduction will be sterilized at birth. The process of selecting persons for the privelage of reproduction will be aimed at preserving ethnic diversity in about 19th century proportions at first, to be refined over time. What kind of world might be expected after the reclassification of the institution of human reproduction from a right to a privelage? There would be strong incentives for medical technology to come up with less "messy" techniques for sterilization, especially techniques that would enable fertility to be turned off or on. It seems reasonable to suppose that such techniques would be well-established by the end of century 21. A system of strictly-enforced laws would almost certainly emerge to ensure that no conflict of interest or misjudgment should arise in the selection of individuals chosen to carry out the function of human reproduction. Although the laws governing reproduction would guarantee ethnic diversity and limit population, individuals would remain free to love and marry whomever they might chose. Besides guaranteeing ethnic diversity and population levels, the governing institution that would ultimately evolve would probably wish to maintain various experimental groupings of other kinds. For example, a "mixed" group, in which individuals would be free to reproduce without considerations of race or criterea of other kinds. Other possibilities include "beautiful," "intellectually gifted," "strong," etc. In such a world, a choice might be made by popular consensus as to the optimum population for planet earth. For example, a vote might be taken as to whether every man, woman, and child alive should be automatically entitled to 10 square miles, 100 square miles, or 1000 square miles of land. It seems clear that technology has us headed for individual palaces, incalculable riches, and just about everything we ever dreamed, if only we can bring our surging population under control, maintain peace, and buy time. Let's take charge now, and do it, for all of mankind.