Over the years, I have come to realize that the fundamental cause of virtually all the planet's many woes, is, simply, too many humans. In my lifetime, global population has increased by over four billion people!To make things even worse, the environmental footprint of each person has also grown.
Beaches and woods where I played as a boy are now pavement and houses. The price of oil has soared to $100 per barrel, and now grain prices are skyrocketing. My wife and I left southern Ontario because of air pollution and incredible traffic gridlock, both directly caused by too many people.
The tipping point that Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich warned us about is finally lurking just around the corner. Yet no one talks about it. We studiously ignore the ever-growing population ... while the freight train steams ever faster toward the cliff.
[Photo courtesy of AntyDiluvian]
3 comments:
Thanks for this blog, Hans. Something I've been wondering about is whether it's the actual number of human beings that's the problem, or the obscenely consumeristic lifestyles of the richest human beings that is the problem.
In other words, if every human being had the "conserver" lifestyle and tiny ecological footprint of say, the Bangladeshi people, would human population still be the problem it currently is?
Dear Hans,
The good news is that you are asking the questions which really have to be asked. Thank you for this blog.
The not-so-good news, I suppose, ist that the questions have no easy answers.
Keep going,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http:sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
Thanks Steve. You are right. The first step, though, is to get people to recognize that population is a really serious problem and to initiate dialogue. Perhaps then, solutions to this complex problem will emerge.
Hans
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