By: Ahmed Mikky
Ahmed currently resides in northern New Jersey and is a student at Bloomfield College.
The television show Utopia follows a group of young teenagers who are attempting to purchase the book of their dreams, a comic called Utopia. Due to their deep research on this topic, they found out that the book contains hidden messages and are afraid of a new disease that may arise. Along with the stress of figuring out what the disease is, they must hide from Hive, an organization that is after anyone that views the comic book. The group manages to take the book and begin their adventure of solving the mystery. Like all shows, the characters never catch a break, and this one is no different. The disease they were trying to prevent suddenly escalates into a pandemic. At the end of the show, the group discovers that the mastermind behind the disease is Dr. Christie, a scientist who, through administration of vaccines, hopes to sterilize the world in order to solve overpopulation.
The show ends there, leaving no further explanation as to why he would do such a thing. It left me confused and wanting more, but they unfortunately announced that there would not be a second season. Towards the end, one of the members of the group, Wilson, betrays the group after a conversation with Dr. Christie. Although the show never filmed what they had discussed, I can only assume that it must have been important enough for Wilson to switch sides. The effects of overpopulation and how it can cause drastic changes to the environment would be enough for anyone to join Dr. Christie.
Overpopulation is not a new issue and has been around for decades now. The population has been steadily increasing and over the years there have been many organizations put in place to prevent overpopulation from occurring. According to Weydner “the decennial rate of population increase jumped from roughly twelve per cent in the 1930’s and 1940’s to twenty per cent in the 1950’s”. This staggering statistic was possible due to the technological and medical advancements of that time period, causing the death rates to decrease. Due to the inventions of vaccines and antibiotics, people were living much longer than before.
Organizations took note of this and began to take action onto a threat that could potentially overcome the planet. One such organization was the International Planned Parenthood Federation, or IPPF for short. Established in 1952 by many countries, they were meant to replace the International Committee on Planned Parenthood (ICPP). The ICPP was originally replaced due to the lack of funding and the disruption of power between countries.
The main goal of the International Planned Parenthood Federation was to give families the correct means of contraceptives, and especially females the tools in which to control how many children they decide to have. At that time, it was targeted toward undeveloped countries who had populations growing at alarming rates. They had also hoped to spread this across other countries to help slow down population growth. Their plan had ultimately failed due to contraceptives being new and no prior research done on them. Although they both were unable to achieve what they had hoped, it is shown that after the events of World War II, people were aware of how fast the population was growing and what that could mean.
Overpopulation occurs when a certain population grows extremely large and reaches a point where the environment they are living in cannot sustain itself. Ever since the outbreak of the Bubonic Plague, the population has been steadily increasing. The carrying capacity had been reached on Earth in the 1970s, which was at that time 4 billion humans. Currently, the human population is at a whopping 7.8 billion. Even after countless wars, battles, and diseases, the population does not cease to increase. Rinkesh states, “none of these could even make a dent on the population”. Why is that? The factors that are at play include having better medical facilities to take care of people, reduced rates at which people die, and more.
There are many complications that come along with overpopulation, and they are nothing to smile about. A few areas that overpopulation affects include climate change, deforestation, effect on marine ecosystem, increase in energy demand, decline in biocapacity, welfare, and food security. If we examine welfare now and compare it to some years back, we can see that quality of life was much better before. This is generally due to poverty and can be shown in India where “the rural area showed a sharp increase from 27.09% in 1999 to 41.79% in the year 2005”.
Another major area we need to look at is food security because it is the first thing that comes to mind with overpopulation. In recent years, it has been an issue that people have noticed due to the growth in the human population. Along with this, reduced availability of natural resources, such as water, land, and energy, has also caused problems with agriculture.
“It would take the resources produced by 1.6 Earths to provide for the human race at sustainable levels.” ~ Jorge Martinez
This alone is a frightening fact to hear and should make anyone want to solve this problem.
Are there any solutions that can be applied to solve overpopulation? Currently, scientists have produced no solution that can prevent human overpopulation, and others have come forth with some form of a solution. The most prominent solution dating all the way back from 1952 is to help educate women about sexual education along with the knowledge of contraceptives. The International Planned Parenthood Federation has spread the knowledge of contraceptives and how they are used across several countries. A study in India indicated that fertility rates of literate women were significantly lower than those of illiterate women. By educating women, you can give them a choice as to whether children are what they want at that time.
This also goes into play with another solution which is to have fewer footprints on Earth. One solution that many people hear is to decrease our carbon footprint, but it is way too large to decrease. Instead, Ware and Gardner conclude that having fewer children per household could solve this problem much quicker. They state that “an average of 1.5 children per family could, in 100 years, lead to a population smaller than today’s”. Just decreasing the number of children per family could accomplish a great deal. This would include people of all backgrounds and developed and underdeveloped countries. Nations like Thailand and Iran reached lower fertility rates in an effort to decrease family sizes.
The main issue with overpopulation is the number of resources we consume. Another solution is to reduce our consumption in an effort to not run out of resources. Humans are inadvertently destroying themselves due to how fast they are consuming resources, which is in turn lowering the carrying capacity. Items like oil, wood, and fish are being consumed at rates so high that they are difficult for the planet to replace. All countries should work together in an effort to reduce our consumption of resources.
The final and most interesting solution is called the internet of things technology or IoT for short. Drepaul says this is a program which analyzes cities in order to maximize their living space. It monitors everything from the economy, government policies, environment, agriculture, living, and more. It takes a survey of the population and deduces from that what the best possible options are. It allows the population to have the freedom of how many children they wish to have, but at the cost of being monitored. The only way for IoT to function is to monitor the lives of people everyday and from that data create a plan. There is no solution that will solve this problem completely, but through different measures, the effects will be reduced.
Unfortunately, overpopulation is not a prevalent issue or theme in popular culture. It is not until recently that we have seen overpopulation take a massive role in television series or movies. The most recent of these is Amazon Prime Video’s Utopia which was released in September 2020. As mentioned previously, Dr. Christie is administering vaccines in the hope of solving overpopulation through the sterilization of people across the globe. However, this was not the only way that he was hoping to solve the problem. The show fails to elaborate on this, but from research we can gather information on what he was doing. Dr. Christie founded an organization which is trying to replicate meat for consumption. He is doing so in efforts of creating food supply due to the decrease in agriculture and land for animals. Because there are more people inhabiting the world, this creates less land for animals to graze, less food for people to eat, and ultimately fewer resources.
We notice that in the home of Dr. Christie, he has many children that all come from different countries and backgrounds. Overpopulation is sure to create wars and calamities over land and resources, leaving children stranded and starved. Since he has quite a few children living with him, we can infer that he has been adopting them one by one over several years. This is all in an effort to save them from those wars and to also reduce the population in that country. Along with this, he also has children which he calls “special” that live separately from him. These can also be assumed to be children from other countries that he adopted.
All these plans of Dr. Christie, although noble, could never fully solve the issue at hand. It was only a slight temporary solution that could not solve the issue one bit. This is what I believe drove Dr. Christie to create his final plan, the vaccine. With this, he would be able to stop people giving birth without them realizing it. Although it sounds cruel and evil by not giving people a choice, it is the only possible way to do it. It is only until people begin to see the chaos start to happen that they are willing to do anything to fix overpopulation. This however would not work because the problems would already be way past the point of no return. Dr. Christie was willing to take the blame and be a scapegoat in order to make the world a better place.
Where Utopia falls short is showing the events that take place after season 1, and what would happen if the vaccines were administered. This is where the movies Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame come in. These movies introduce the character of Thanos, a villain who wants to erase half of the life forms in the universe in order to solve overpopulation. Thanos was born on a planet that was struggling with overpopulation and was filled with starvation and wars. He proposed his plan of randomly killing half the people on the planet but was made fun of and consequently, the planet was soon destroyed. From then on, Thanos began his mission to solve overpopulation.
When Thanos visits a planet in order to kill half their life forms, he adopts a daughter, Gamora. He learns to love Gamora, but she eventually finds out what he did to her planet and betrays him. During their conversation, Gamora argues that there was no point in him killing half her people, but Thanos says otherwise. He mentions that because he did that, her planet is now thriving better than ever and there are enough resources to go around. He adds that “This universe is finite, its resources finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist”. It is because Thanos cares for the world that he is willing to go this far. He even sheds tears and mourns after he is forced to kill Gamora, which shows the level of compassion he has.
Even when he erases half the population on Earth, the environment shows signs that it has healed after only five years. Captain America mentions to Black Widow that he spotted Whales in the Hudson River, which he justifies because there is cleaner water due to fewer ships. Chammary agrees that “Endgame shows that Thanos’ actions helped animals”. Although the actions of Thanos may seem cruel, they were meant to benefit the world.
The show Utopia is in some ways a disappointment when it comes to showcasing the theme of overpopulation. It fails to explain the motives behind Dr. Christie and what his reasons were for making such a huge plan. It almost makes Dr. Christie seem irrational and his actions absurd. What is even worse is that the second season has been canceled, making it impossible to fully dissect this show due to its incompletion.
On the other hand, Thanos clearly indicates his reasons and why he is so passionate. What makes villains different from heroes is that they are willing to fight for a cause, no matter the dangers it will cause to others. Although Thanos is planning to erase half of the population, this does not mean to say that he is cruel. Chammary adds that “The snap itself simply erased people from existence”.
He was willing to go so far as to kill his daughter that he loved so dearly. Before he killed her, we saw him shed tears, but that is not the only time he mourns her death. When being attacked on Titan, his home planet, he is also shown to be mourning and grieving over her death.
At first, villains may seem like they are bloodthirsty criminals who are only thinking about themselves, but this is not the reality. From Thanos’ character, we can see that they can be thinking more about us than we think they do.
There are people who say that overpopulation can benefit the world, while others say the complete opposite. What is shown clearly from scientific research and evidence is that overpopulation is a real threat that needs to be dealt with. With the population rising, there is sure to be increased rates of climate change and decreased rates of biodiversity. Avengers: Infinity War clearly indicates that if the population were to be cut in half, or to be monitored in our case, the planet would be thriving. Think back to Wilson from the beginning of the article, and now ask yourself if you would do the same thing he did? After learning about overpopulation and how it can drastically change the world we live in, it is no shock that Wilson switched sides after hearing what Dr. Christie had to say.
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