The challenge of human overpopulation is found in some form almost everywhere in the world. Some areas are now so overcrowded that the inhabitants experience critical shortages of food and other resources, even space to live. In these places, as well as many others less crowded, human populations and civilizations act to degrade their environment through many forms of pollution. Who has not heard the cry for cleaner air, purer water, preservation of wilderness, care for endangered species?
Too often, human solutions are directed toward effects rather than fundamental causes. There seems to be a tendency in our technologically advanced society to expect human inventiveness to solve all the problems caused by overpopulation. We hear proposals for "technological fixes" on food shortage, pollution of air and water, degradation of wilderness, by uncovering new ways in which men can dominate their environment. These are valid needs, of course, and should be vigorously dealt with on many fronts. But if over optimism in these technological areas lulls us into leaving the more fundamental problem of overpopulation unsolved, the day of reckoning will merely be postponed a few years and quite likely be more drastic when it arrives.
How can Christian Science be applied directly to the problem of over population? Consider the question in the light of ecology.
