 toÂ Prague. Because this magnificent city was not bombed during WWII, it architecturally beautiful. Tourism has helped to revive an economy that was stifled by communism until 1989. The excellent public transportation system is widely used so there are fewer private cars, and the streets are â€œpedestrian friendlyâ€. A good dinner surrounded by pleasant Czechs helped to revive my faith in humanity.
The dayâ€™s second shock came when I read e-mail. A video by a Kenyan reporter views his countryâ€™s current warfare from a distinctive perspective. He feels that the killings there are not just a result of the recent election. Indeed, the slaughter started before the disputed voting. To see this video, go to:Â www.mambogani.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8495.
This reporter asserts that his countryâ€™s large and growing population has subdivided the available land so that each personâ€™s allotment is too small to grow sufficient food. The fighting is really about land. When he asked a rebel about overpopulation, the soldier pointed out that the only way for poor people to gain power is by increasing their numbers. This is a basic conundrum.
There is precedent for the theory that overpopulation is destabilizingÂ Africa. In a powerful articleÂ (www.worldwatch.org/node/524)Â published on the tenth anniversary of the holocaust in Rwanda, David Gasana points out that the killing occurred where people were close to starvation.
Dr. Gasana had been a minister in the Rwandan government before the holocaust there. He points out that the birth rate, which had been one of the highest in the world, increased the Rwandan population beyond his countryâ€™s ability to grow sufficient food. The government was too poor to import the food needed to prevent hunger. The fighting was really about trying to feed oneâ€™s family.
Dr. Maurice King is one of my heroes. A retired physician, his years of working inÂ Africa have made him concerned about the future of that continent. He fears that many other countries will follow in Rwandaâ€™s and Kenyaâ€™s footsteps. He predicts that poor people will be trapped without food or any means of escape, when human population outgrows the capacity of the land to support the people. He calls this controversial theory â€œdemographic entrapmentâ€ Read more at:Â www.leeds.ac.uk/demographic_entrapment/.
Whether the extreme of demographic entrapment, or Hitlerâ€™s claim of needing â€œLebensraumâ€ as an excuse to exterminate non-Aryans, a certain amount of land is needed to support any human population. What is frightening is that, in many places, we have already exceeded the carrying capacity of our environment.
Â© Richard Grossman MD, 2008Â