7 billion humans' is hard to believe

Dear Peter Sibeko,

Your concern for the environment is a real one. Access to resources like air and water are being reduced by pollution and deforestation (plants make oxygen – nothing else does). The weather is getting hotter, too and the Swaziland Meteorology Department already says the Low-veld is too hot to grow maize successfully. So you are partly right – our basic essential resources will become harder to find; but not just because we are wrecking our environment but also because the planet’s population is still increasing rapidly.

In fact, the planetary population can easily reach 10 billion, and probably will even if we try to slow the population growth today. Amazing advances in medical knowledge, facilities and training, as well as the ample provision of food and nutrition, have ensured that humans are living longer and better than ever before. Just not everywhere.

In the First World, a child born today can expect to see their 80th birthday with some degree of certainty. In Swaziland, a child born today can expect to see no more than its 43rd birthday. This is what it means to live in the country with the highest HIV/AIDS and TB infection rates in the world; a country where 63 per cent of the population lives on two dollars a day or less (these are all government’s figures). So, yes, we in Swaziland are ‘under siege’ – but humanity as a whole is thriving beyond the capabilities of our planet to sustain us.