POPULATION EXPLOSION
Around the fall 0f 2009, a movie was released in theaters. This movie involves science fiction and a global disaster and was titled The Road starring Vigo Mortensen. The movie is based on a book written in 2006. I will take the time to examine past movies that have a similar genre.
As early as the late 60s, some scientist and scholars had warned about the threat of a population explosion that would put the world's resources beyond the breaking point. This would be a total nightmare during the current economic downturn that is in existence. India and China currently face the problem of its population reaching over one billion respectively. The Philippines is another story altogether. In 1985, the country's population stood at about 60 million people. Compare the size of that country to the size of Canada, whose population stood at a modest 31 million, which grew to 34 million by 2008. By that time, the population of the Philippines now stands at a staggering 93 plus million people, which has undoubtedly led to more graft and corruption and very much illegal immigration to other countries like the U.S. and Canada. The Philippines experiences an average of two million births a year. Most of these births are out of wedlock and unplanned. This would have dire consequences that continue to be ignored and neglected. This coincides with the global food crisis occurring with the third world nations, including the Philippines. The frightening but not surprising thing is that most Filipinos are too ignorant to notice the long-term consequences. The reason for the global food crisis is due to the population explosion with the third world nations. Oddly enough, the British film industry had actually depicted such a problem as early as the 1960s. The movie in question was titled No Blade of Grass. The movie depicted a virus created by pollution and nuclear waste. The virus kills off all the rice and grain in the world. This leads to a global food shortage resulting in a breakdown in government and order. People take matters into their own hands and kill other people, just to survive. In the movie, a family, living in Great Britain, flees London and head to Scotland and Safety -or so they thought. This movie has become relevant as ever. Still, there is the subject what Hollywood has to do with the subject of population explosion.
The subject of the population explosion actually does have relevance to Hollywood, which I will get into. There are two interesting points of trivia in relevance to the subject. One involves my experience in boarding school and the other involves Hollywood. I find it hard to believe that I still remember the time when I was in boarding school when my Geography teacher warned about the fact that reducing the mortality rate in third world countries would ultimately contribute to a population explosion. Most of my classmates then did not give much thought to the teacher's lecture as I did. Today, my thoughts on the teacher's lecture have come back to haunt me. Hollywood already depicted the problem long before that teacher's lecture in the 1973 movie Soylent Green starring Charlton Heston.
The movie Soylent Green depicted a future overwhelmed by pollution and population explosion that has made the basic essentials something of a luxury. Natural food had become so scarce that people had to subsist on a synthetic food wafer made from chemicals and a secret ingredient that isn't revealed until the end of the movie. The movie takes place in New York, where the population is roughly six to ten times higher than average and half of that population is unemployed. The population explosion is so immense that suicide is not only sanctioned but also encouraged. This idea was definitely way before Dr. Jack Kevorkian would garner media attention in the 1980s with his practice of euthanasia. This kind of depiction goes against the growing problem of suicide, which had gained public attention in the 1970s and continues to be an issue to this present day. It should be interesting to note that the movie was the first to depict global warming caused by excessive carbon monoxide emissions. Back in the 1940s to 1950s, the thought of a population explosion was not even an issue as it is now today. Hollywood may have addressed it more dramatically than anyone would imagine. Even before the movie Soylent Green, a 1971 TV movie also depicted a near future where population explosion was so much the problem that married couples are only allowed to have one child only. This was a 1971 movie that depicted the dilemma faced by China today. The movie was titled The Last Child and was about the married couple who try to flee the authorities because they want to abort their second unborn child. Their first child had died at birth. They ultimately flee to Canada in the end. This movie was made in 1970 and most people did not even think that the population explosion would be an issue as it is today. People are still in a form of self-denial over this.
Urban sprawl
Chronic traffic jams and pollution
population explosion = more unemployment
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3DBFCA9742D3EBF0
