population

Our brains evolved over hundreds of millions of years to react to rapid changes in our environment. One apparently built-in feature is the tendency to keep the environmental backdrop against which our lives play out relatively constant. That makes it easier to detect rapid changes to which an organisms must react. One of our fish ancestors in a Devonian lake 400 million years ago was not paying attention to .01 degree Celsius temperature changes in the water occurring as clouds passed the sun - it was looking out for dangerous predators in that water that could end its life in a second.

Some people think policies aimed at slowing population growth are foisted on the developing world by heavy-handed industrialized countries. Actually, most population policies are home grown, and sometimes none the better for this. I have a hunch there’s not much gender diversity in the circles that develop them. And those who write about them often fall into the same trap.

“Oops, I’m pregnant.”

Last Saturday evening my wife and I took our terminally ill cat to an animal hospital, where a veterinarian put him peacefully to sleep as he sat on my lap. I wasn’t really a cat lover when we adopted him seven years ago, but this unusually affectionate and communicative kitty cat converted me. I’m surprised how much I’m grieving for the loss of him.