Population Zero

Chapter Three

Todd pedaled his ten-speed the six miles to his apartment, stopping at the mailbox on his way into the gated courtyard.

He tucked the stack of bills under his arm and then tossed the supermarket fliers, dry cleaning coupons, and fast food menus into the trashcan. His two favorite magazines had arrived. Vegan Times and Imperiled Planet. Todd thumbed through the magazines as he walked to his apartment. There was an article on the detoxification and weight loss benefits of raw foods, an article about famous celebrities who ate macrobiotically, and a recipe for vegan pasta made from shredded zucchini. Todd closed the magazine and opened the other one as he fished in his front pocket for his keys.

All of the positive feelings Todd had about what he had accomplished at work that day dissipated in a flash as he scanned through an article titled Zero Population. It was written by Heimlich Anattoli the head of the environmental activist group that Todd belonged to and it was all about the group and his book of the same name. Todd had read the book last year after it had hit the bestseller's list. The statistics that Heimlich quoted on overpopulation were terrifying and humbling. The kind that makes you feel helpless and doomed, that make all of your efforts feel insignificant. The population was increasing by 76 million people a year, 2,500 every twenty minutes. At that rate of growth, even accounting for a continual decrease in the death rate, the world population would hit ten billion within 50 years. That many people would completely overwhelm the earth, drain it dry of all of its natural resources and leave it a dead husk. Something had to be done.

Earlier that year he'd watched a documentary on Charles Manson in which Manson had stated that he needed to kill about 2 million people in order to save the planet. Two million people would be a barely a drop in the bucket in terms of overpopulation and the 2 unwanted children whose births he had prevented would not make a difference at all. He needed to do more. He had to find a way to convince more people.

Todd finally pulled his keys out and opened his front door. He dropped his magazines onto the coffee table and walked into his bedroom. Todd plopped down onto his bed and opened up his laptop. He went to the Zero Population message board. There was a new message from Heimlich. It was almost as if the man had read his mind.

"I know that many of you are concerned that the task is too big. You think that your efforts are too small to be significant. That there's not much one individual can do to impact an entire planet. Well, let me tell you a story.

A boy and his grandfather are walking along the beach. There are starfish all along the beach that were stranded there when the tide rolled out. The boy reaches down and picks up a starfish as they pass it and tosses it back into the ocean.

He does this over and over again as they pass each starfish.

His grandfather asks him, "Why do you keep picking up those starfish?"

The boy looks up at his grandfather and answers, "Because they will die if I don't put them back in the water."

The boy's grandfather looks down the beach and then back at his grandson.

"There's dozens of miles of beach. What you're doing won't make much of a difference." The boy looks down at the starfish in his hand and then tosses it into the water.

"It will to this one."

So before you tell yourself that your efforts couldn't possibly make a difference, I want you to consider that the average human being is responsible for the deaths of 90 to 100 animals a year for food, clothing, and other consumable products and the destruction of more than an acre of trees. That's all just from one person."

Todd smiled and leaned back on his bed. It was exactly what he needed to hear.

Zero Population was an environmental group that advocated saving the planet through voluntary sterilization. Todd had had a recent vasectomy himself and had persuaded one of his co-workers to do the same. What he had done today though, was taking it to a whole different level. He had done more than convince someone to not have children. He had convinced those women to kill the babies already inside them. He wished that he could talk to Heimlich. He wanted to see if the man would approve of what he had done. He needed that support. He needed him to condone his actions.

Todd sat up in bed and pulled the laptop toward him. He scrolled down to the bottom of the message board and hit

"New Thread". He took a moment to think of exactly what to say, sighed deeply, backed away from the laptop, sighed again then pulled the keyboard towards him and began to type.

What if you are already pregnant? Would you recommend that a woman have an abortion rather than bring another human into the world?

Todd's finger hovered over the keyboard as he tried to decide whether or not to hit enter. He could not stand the idea that Heimlich might not agree with what he had done. Heimlich was one of his heroes. He had read both of the man's books, The Human Plague and the bestseller that had gotten him on the front page of Millennium Magazine, the one from which the message board derived its name, Zero Population. Todd had read The Human Plague when he was in junior college and it had been like a revelation to him. It detailed the rapid expansion of the human population over the last two hundred years and its impact on the planet from pollution and greenhouse gases to deforestation and the extinction of hundreds of thousands of plant and animal life. But it was Zero Population that had the greatest impact on Todd.

This was the book that offered Heimlich's prescription for solving the problem of overpopulation. Heimlich wanted to go one step further than China and rather than limit every couple to one child, he believed that 90% of the world's men and women should be chemically sterilized, meat consumption limited to once per week by law, and the internal combustion engine banned. It was a radical stance and the Republican Right had pounced on him. It wasn't long before Heimlich was on every talk show in the country defending his opinions against government sponsored environmental experts, right-wing politicians, and shock jocks. Heimlich's position had never wavered despite being ridiculed and maligned. Todd had been impressed. He'd looked him up on the internet and tried to contact him. That's how he had discovered his website and the message board. Today, however, was the first time in over a year that he had come out of lurking to post on the board. In minutes, he got his reply.

There were already eight other replies split right down the middle between people who thought that telling a woman to abort her baby would be taking it too far and would further alienate them from the other environmental groups to those who were adamant that any woman that would bring another child into this world was a traitor to the planet. Todd scrolled all the way down the thread until he reached Heimlich's reply:

Who knows which child will be the one that finally breaks the camel's back? There is no way of telling how many people this world can accommodate before it gets completely overwhelmed and dies. That child in that woman's belly could be the one that dooms us all. Each human born is another consumer, another drain on the world's resources. If that woman can be persuaded to terminate her pregnancy then that can only help the cause. Who cares about those other environmental groups? This isn't a popularity contest. This is about the future of our planet.

Todd nodded his head in agreement. He'd gotten his answer.