TheJakartaPost
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Urbanization puts growing strain on clean water, air
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Going clean: A Jakarta Sanitation Agency worker removes waste from a polluted river in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, on Friday, July 20, 2018. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
W
here is the century heading? There is great uncertainty in many parts of the world, with an intercontinental drift of people from the South to the North, as well as the perennial religion-based problems and wars in the Middle East and other locations spurring a move to safety in the West.
On top of increased population, the South-to-North movement can be connected to hopeless governments ruling in South America and Africa.
Those who have taken power have just continued and extended the extractive practices of pre-independence days, not caring at all about investing in education and infrastructure to stimulate development for their people.
If we step back a mere 80 years, there was only a quarter of the number of people in the world as there are today, when the population is approaching 8 billion, with most of the growth having taken place over the past half century.
It is perhaps significant that this matches the expansion of the commercial and industrial uses of computers and perhaps particularly their applications for medical science.
Was the era of president Soeharto prescient in trying to encourage population control, with the slogan “Dua anak cukup” (two children are enough)?
China imposed a draconian one-child policy, which was continued too long and ultimately led to questionable practices and a serious gender imbalance, as felt today.
