Captain Planet and the Planeteers Season 1 Episode 21

As hard as it might be to perceive, there used to be a time more than 150 years ago where it wasn't just an encouragement for people to have large families, it was almost always required as well! Before the advancements of medicine and science, as well as research into proper food consumption, vitamin intakes, dieting, and exercising, people were often considered to be old if they lived to be 40, and many children were lucky if they lived to be over 6 years old due to the bigger collection of diseases that still ran wild in nature back then. And yet, as far as we've come since then, curbing the large family habit hasn't been easy in all parts of the world. It's a sad truth there are still places in the world where diseases are still rampant, the living standards of food consumption and dieting are poor, and many people don't live to be old while children are malnourished. Due to the gap of living standards between 1st world governments and 3rd world governments, largely undeveloped or developing countries still push for large families. But with all the people living in the world today, the people continuing to be born into the world, and with more people living longer, the ratio of people being born and living is quickly outgrowing the ratio of people who pass away, through natural or other causes. This episode raises a good moral question for people to consider. A human life is precious, and all human beings are born with the potential to bring good into the world. The only question is: how much is too much? The answer is, we need to be careful and plan our futures, because while we can learn to live with less so a sustainable population can have more, our 6 billion+ population can't live comfortably if more people are forced to live with less food, less land, less water, and less resources. Wheeler and the other Planeteers learn that over-population is one issue that cannot afford to be unresolved. This is a well-written cartoon episode! ;)