Improving the Way We Manage Resources

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist, wrote a book called “The Population Bomb”. In it he warned us about the doom of humanity.

Ehrlich’s vision included resource depletion, extinction of countless species, and a human population so large that we would face mass poverty, famine, starvation, and systemic death. He predicted that the comfortable population capacity of earth was 2.5 billion, which had been reached in 1950.

Since then, our population has more than doubled, and this planet is currently sustaining 7.8 billion people. This has come with the cost of mass extinction of endangered species, pollution of rivers, lakes, and oceans, depletion of natural resources, holes in the ozone layer, air pollution, and much more. Fortunately, the Yearly Population Growth Rate has been in constant decline for the past two decades, and is now at 1%. (1)

Imagine where we would be today, how humans around the world would live, if we hadn’t spent the last 14,000 years fighting so all those wars. Imagine what we could have created and achieved, if we had spent all that money, resources, and human lives, for the benefit of all.

Some peopled argue that wars are useful, they balance the population overgrowth, and aid in generating technological advances like the GPS. In my opinion, there are kinder ways to go about it.

According to the United Nations, it would only cost $267 billion per year to end world hunger. This is only 0.3% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). (2)

Sadly, the money we could use to end world hunger is being use to kill people in war. As a matter of fact, the total military expenses for the whole world is more than $1,686 billion dollars each year. (3) That is more than six times the amount needed to end world hunger. This is an atrocity. Imagine what we could achieve if we invested all that money in research, education, technological advances, and fruit production.

Governments, businesses, and people in general, are used to being extremely wasteful. It is part of our social conditioning. Even those who claim to be environmentally conscious tend to be quite wasteful.

We are set on our ways and it can be extremely challenging to change our habits. That being said, idealism and utopic perspectives are not the be frowned upon. Steve Jobs said it best: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do”. (That is actually a quote from Rob Siltanen, Steve Jobs used in his 2005 commencement speech)

Raw vegan and fruit based diets can help sustain a healthy population on earth for many generations to come. By focusing natural resources on organic fruit production, it can be easier to feed the growing world population.

Banana palms grow very quickly, papayas contain hundreds of seeds that can become fruiting trees in less than a year. Fruits like squash can be grown around the world and feed the hungry, transforming our daily food costs to just a few dollars per day. It is beautiful to imagine what could happen if we all Give Fruit a Chance.

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