In this week’s Futures, Jack McDevitt returns with some Good news. Jack is no stranger to Futures — his first story for us appeared back in 2006. More recently, he co-wrote a tale with Tom Easton. You can find out more about Jack’s work at his website. Here, he takes a look at the themes that informed his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Good news

During the 1930s, when we were struggling with a worldwide depression, the global population was approximately 2 billion. It has almost quadrupled since then. Many scientists maintain that we have already surpassed the planet’s sustainable limit. We are taking over animal habitats and driving many species into extinction. We are ruining the oceans and polluting the skies.

The good news is that we are taking measures to compensate for our behaviour. But ultimately none of these measures will matter if we cannot, or will not, do something about our runaway population.

As land and resources become less available, conflict will grow and conditions will worsen. In the end, wherever the limit of sustainability is, we can be certain of one thing: we cannot continue this mindless expansion forever. Unless we are seriously considering shipping large segments of the population to Mars.