Nov. 12, 2006
MANN TALK: Texas with a Population of Six Billion
By Perry Mann
Hinton, WV (Special to HNN) – In my hometown the issue of abortion is as
intense as it is everywhere else. In response to a pro-choice advocate’s
argument that over-population was a justification for abortion, a local
anti-choice zealot responded flippantly and dismissively: “Over populated
world? A bit of trivia---All the people of the world could be settled in the
State of Texas with some room left over.”
I was intrigued by the image of all the people of the world located in the
State of Texas and of the anti-abortionist being one of six billion people
in a state with an area of about 250,000 square miles -- 10 times the size
of West Virginia. I did the arithmetic; and I discovered that he is right.
If all six billion people of the earth were located in Texas, each would
have a lot of about 900 square feet. But, then, there are some deductions
that would have to be made from the lot.
First, the western half of Texas, I understand, is a desert that is fit only
for rattlesnakes, sidewinders, cactuses, and militiamen bent on
insurrection; and it is a place so hostile to life that not even a Shiite
Iraqi would voluntarily migrate thereto, not to mention the reluctance to go
there of folks who live in a villa on the Riviera, which is an Eden that
gives them a view of the blue Mediterranean and affords them the temperature
year round that only God’s chosen could expect. The prospect therefore is
that the people of West Texas would be forever at war with the people of
East Texas, the West Texans’ aim being to expropriate to themselves by tooth
and claw the East Texans’ lots. .
Where are the automobiles to be parked? To provide parking for 6,000,000,000
SUVs will require considerable real estate and so will the parking areas at
all the Wal-Marts and the roadways leading to and from malls and all other
places in Texas. Then, there needs to be space for railways, governmental
buildings, corporate towers, religious edifices, merchants’ stores, offices
of all kinds, manufacturing locations, cities and town, waste dumps, and
most of all cemeteries. One needs to calculate the amount of ground needed
to bury about a million people a day. A lot 6x6x8 times six million adds up.
Next there must be deducted land for golf courses, football, baseball and
soccer stadiums. And, of course, military installations, airfields,
colleges and public schools. But most important in Texas is room for oil
wells, particularly, in the event that Iraqi oil fields do not suffice to
fill all the tanks of all the SUVs and also in the event that
environmentalists ---and Texas would have an abundance of them if all humans
were there---continue to frustrate Bush II’s ambition to drill in the Arctic
Wilderness.
With all the deductions there will be little left but standing room for the
six billion inhabitants. But a large number of them will be copulating
regardless of how crowded it is. Nature has a way. The result of all the
amorous unions is predictable: about a million more people a day, in excess
of deaths, will make an appearance and scream for attention.
With the prospect of a million new mouths to feed a day or 365,000,000 a
year, someone is going to suggest that there has got to be a stop to the
oppressive increase in population and that sex education, contraception and
abstinence are not enough. The only other answer, he suggests, is abortion.
So after lengthy debate as to whether ‘tis better to abort or to perish
smothered in people, the majority decides that even God does not mean by “be
fruitful and multiply” that man and woman should procreate themselves out of
a place to stand. So the majority legalizes abortion. And, I suspect that
had the anti-choice zealot been in a position to vote, he would have voted
with the majority.
Environmentalists have calculated that any given lifestyle requires so much
acreage to sustain it. The calculation is based on many factors: the number
of members of the family, the square feet of the residence, the number and
kind of cars they drive, the amount of meat consume, and many other factors
that indicate the degree of luxury that they enjoy or the lack thereof.
Of course, Americans’ lifestyle requires many more acres of land than the
lifestyle of the citizens of any other country. In fact, the lifestyle of
Americans is such a burden on the acreage of Earth that in order for the
rest of world to live as well as Americans do, another Earth would have to
be created. And since God is not of a mind to create another Earth for
people who have desecrated and overpopulated the original one, Americans are
faced with the dilemma of either reducing their lifestyles or confronting
the hordes of poor of the world demanding some kind of social and economic
justice by peaceful or violent means. And a place to stand.
In my pre-occupation with humans, a common failing of Homo sapiens, I forgot
the rest of life; that is, all the other animals and plants. Where are they
going to find space in a Texas with six billion people? If there are no
plants, there will be no oxygen. No roses, no perfume. Claustrophobia and
despair will grip all of life and squeeze even hope from it. Abortion will
seem a blessing.
Over-population is not a bit of trivia; it is a worldwide plague, and it
will become a fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, unless man treats it as a
plague instead of a triviality.
* * * *
Perry Mann is a former teacher, a lawyer, a former prosecuting attorney
of Summers County and a regular columnist for the Nicholas Chronicle in
Summersville and Huntington News Network.