If we start with the assumption that there are
already too many people on Earth, contraception won't do much to affect that. (A massive sterilization program wouldn't either.)
Consider China’s “one child policy,” which has actually been relatively successful, but China’s population keeps growing. This is due to demographics, and a longer life span.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#Effects_on_population_growth_and_fertility_rate …
Effects on population growth and fertility rate
Since the introduction of the one-child policy, the fertility rate in China has fallen from over three births per woman in 1980 (already a sharp reduction from more than five births per woman in the early 1970s) to approximately 1.8 births in 2008. (The colloquial term "births per woman" is usually formalized as the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), a technical term in demographic analysis meaning the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates through her lifetime.)
In total, the Chinese government estimates that it has three to four hundred million fewer people in 2008, with the one-child policy, than it would have had otherwise. Chinese authorities thus consider the policy as a great success in helping to implement China's current economic growth. The reduction in the fertility rate and thus population growth has reduced the severity of problems that come with overpopulation, like epidemics, slums, overwhelmed social services (such as health, education, law enforcement), and strain on the ecosystem from abuse of fertile land and production of high volumes of waste. Even with the one-child policy in place, however, "China still has one million more births than deaths every five weeks."
… This leaves us with a couple of choices
- Culling (I am not recommending this)
or - Figuring out how to support such a large population, while doing our best to first slow and then reverse population growth.
You cannot turn a battleship on a dime, and if you try, you won't like the results.
One explanation of what caused the Hindenburg to crash was maneuvers intended to change its heading too quickly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=11111612 …
It may seem strange that the fire did not occur the moment the landing ropes had touched the ground, because that is when the ship would have been earthed. I believe there is an explanation for this. When the ropes were first dropped they were very dry, and poor conductors. Slowly however they got dampened by the rain that was falling and the charge was slowly equalized. Thus the potential difference between the ship and the overlying air masses would have been sufficient enough to generate static electricity. The Hindenburg would have acted as a giant kite, close to the storm clouds, collecting a static spark.
I am convinced, that a leak must have occurred in the upper rear section of the ship. My assumption is confirmed by the remarkable observations by one of the witnesses. He described seeing a peculiar flutter as if gas was rising and escaping. If I were to be asked to explain what had caused this abnormal build-up of gas, I could only make to myself one explanation.
The ship proceeded in a sharp turn during its landing maneuver. This would have generated extremely high tension in the sections close to the stabilizing fins, which are braced by shear wires. I suspect that under such tension one of these wires may have broken and caused a rip in one of the gas cells. The gas then filled up the space between the cell and the outer cover, which is why the ship sank at the rear. This accumulated amount of gas was then ignited by a static spark. This was not lightning but a small static spark, enough to ignite free gas in the rear.
…
Is my metaphor too obscure?