Crowding

Photo from loe.org

The most obvious aspect of overpopulation is simple crowding. The physical reality of limited space on the surface of the planet with a burgeoning human population (1 million increase every few days) is obvious, even to the unscientific. 

A friend told me an anecdote the other day. He was in a food-store cashier line in Boston. A South Asian man, most likely used to being jammed into limited space in his homeland, was brushing up against my friend's back as they waited in line. The brushing felt like pushing to my friend, who gradually became annoyed and yelled at the man to back off. The man was shocked and denied doing anything unusual. My friend's perception was based in having private space, based on a late-middle-aged American standard. The South Asian man's standard of space was obviously very different due to the crowded nature of his home environment. A minor clash of population etiquette which caused conflict.

A news story this morning seems relevant. 800,000 people had to evacuate a section of the eastern Indian peninsula to escape an approaching cyclone which eventually landed and killed seven people. This says so much about the human conundrum over population. Where do you push 800,000 people in a country which is already grossly overpopulated? What price is paid by those into whose territory those 800,000 are pushed? What environmental deterioration will the 800,000 face when they return home? How many will return home? Will they stay and further overpopulate their refuge territory over time? Where will the refugees from the next cyclone flee? 

I see a common human desire for crowding here in my own "developed" city. People flock to massive sports celebrations after a tournament victory. Millions flock to the city's center for a parade and rally. Street are closed. People jam in hip-to-hip. Ancient transit systems are stretched to capacity. Most likely, much of the subsequent breakdowns and inconveniences are related to the government's lack of anticipation of the consequences of overloading the systems. There are consequences of too many people, too much weight, too many overloaded trips over a short period of time. But this is science, and we are becoming America the Unscientific.