"And yours?" the Bishop barked.
"I'm an agnostic."
The bishop snorted his disgust and made his way to the door. There he
turned and had his last word. "All you do is meaningless. I pray you,
again, give it up and join in the Lord's work."
Homer Crawford nodded to him. "Thank you, Bishop Manning. I'm sure we
will all consider your words." When the older man was gone, he looked
out over the hall again. "Well, who is next?"
* * * * *
A thus far speechless member of the audience, seated in the first row,
came to his feet. His face was serious and strained, the face of a man
who pushes himself beyond the point of efficiency in the vain effort to
accomplish more by expenditure of added hours.
He came to the front and said, "Since I'm possibly the only one here who
also has objections to the reason for calling this meeting, I might as
well have my say now." He half turned to Crawford, and continued. "Mr.
Chairman, my name is Ralph Sandell and I'm an officer in the Sahara
Afforestation Project, which, as you know, is also under the auspices of
the Reunited Nations, though not having any other connection with your
own organization."
Homer Crawford nodded. "We know of your efforts, but why do you object
to calling this meeting?" He seemed mystified.
"Because, like Bishop Manning, I think your efforts misdirected. I think
you are expending tremendous sums of money and the work of tens of
thousands of good men and women, in directions which in the long run
will hardly count."
Crawford leaned back in surprise, waiting for the other's reasoning.
Ralph Sandell obliged. "As the chairman pointed out, the problem of
population explosion is a desperate one. Even today, with all the
efforts of the Reunited Nations and of the individual countries involved
in African aid, the population of this continent is growing at a pace
that will soon outstrip the arable portion of the land. Save only
Antarctica, Africa has the smallest arable percentage of land of any of
the continents.
"The task of the Afforestation Project is to return the Sahara to the
fertile land it once was. The job is a gargantuan one, but ultimately
quite possible. Here in the south we are daming the Niger, running our
irrigation projects farther and farther north. From the Mauritania area
on the Atlantic we are pressing inland, using water purification and
solar pumps to utilize the ocean. In the mountains of Morocco, the water
available is being utilized more efficiently than ever before, and the
sands being pushed back. We are all familiar with Egypt's ever
increasingly successful efforts to exploit the Nile. In the Sahara
itself, the new solar pumps are utilizing wells to an extent never
dreamed of before. The oases are increasing in a geometric progression
both in number and in size." He was caught up in his own enthusiasm.
Crawford said, interestedly, "It's a fascinating project. How long do
you estimate it will be before the job is done?"
"Perhaps a century. As the trees go in by the tens of millions, there
will be a change in climate. Forest begets moisture which in turn allows
for more forest." He turned back to the audience as a whole. "In time we
will be able to farm these million upon million of acres of fertile
land. First it must go into forest, then we can return to field
agriculture when climate and soil have been restored. This is our prime
task! This is our basic need. I call upon all of you for your support
and that of your organizations if you can bring their attention to the
great need. The tasks you have set yourselves are meaningless in the
face of this greater one. Let us be practical."
"Crazy man," Abe Baker said aloud. "Let's be practical and cut out all
this jazz." The youthful New Yorker came to his feet. "First of all you
just mentioned it was going to take a century, even though it's going
like a geometric progression. Geometric progressions get going kind of
slow, so I imagine that your scheme for making the Sahara fertile again,
won't really be under full steam until more than halfway through that
century of yours, and not really ripping ahead until, maybe two thirds
of the way. Meanwhile, what's going to happen?"
"I beg your pardon!" Ralph Sandell said stiffly.
"That's all right," Abe Baker grinned at him. "The way they figure,
population doubles every thirty years, under the present rate of
increase. They figure there'll be three billion in the world by 1990,
then by 2020 there would be six billions, and in 2050, twelve billions
and twenty-four by the time your century was up. Old boy, I suggest the
addition of a Sahara of rich agricultural land a century from now
wouldn't be of much importance."
"Ridiculous!"
"You mean me, or you?" Abe grinned. "I once read an article by Donald
Kingsbury. It's reprinted these days because it finished off the subject
once and for all. He showed with mathematical rigor that given the
present rate of human population increase, and an absolutely unlimited
technology that allowed instantaneous intergalactical transportation and
the ability to convert anything and everything into food, including
interstellar dust, stars, planets, everything, it would take only seven
thousand years to turn the total mass of the total universe into human
flesh!"
The Sahara Afforestation official gaped at him.
The room rocked with laughter.