Can we continue to celebrate runaway population growth?

By Frosty Wooldridge

America faces crushing environmental issues in 2011, but what predicament do you suppose the media evades, ignores and often celebrates? 

While the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Atlanta Constitution and most other papers reported on gridlock traffic, accidents, air pollution, species extinction, climate change, water aquifers drying up and not enough lanes on the highways—they never once reported on the cause.

So what causes most of the environmental degradation, energy crisis, poverty, world hunger and other exploding issues facing America and global citizens?

Answer: human overpopulation in America and around the world!

Why we persist with our fantasy:

1. Dogma trumps reason: 234 year history of endless growth. 
2. Incrementalism: pace of change resides beyond our realm of perception.
3. Technological deception: technology has saved us in the past; surely again.
4. Innumeracy: inability to comprehend the exponential function.
5. Exemptionalism: we’re immune to resources depletion. 

“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases of population, locally, nationally, or globally.”  Dr. Albert Bartlett, physics professor, University of Colorado

The U.S. added 100 million people in the last 40 years to hit 300 million in 2008 .  In 2009, the United States added 3.1 million people net gain. The US jumped from 306 million to 309 million on its way to 400 million by 2035—a mere 25 years from now.  They slipped in quietly from other overpopulated countries, legally and illegally.  All immigration drove the other 2.1 million added persons to the USA in 2009. Even though the American females have averaged 2.03 children since 1970, we add 1.0 million of our own from ‘population momentum’. 

Globally, humans added 78 million last year to hit 6.9 billion. Humans expect to add 3.0 billion by mid century to reach 10.2 billion.  Think they can be sustained?  Think again!  Over 18 million humans die of starvation worldwide annually. (Source: World Health Organization)

Hyper-population growth stands behind every environmental crisis facing America. This finite planet cannot and will not sustain an endlessly expanding population. 

“This planet was never intended to support the number of human beings we currently have residing on it. As a result, natural lands and animal populations are disappearing—and rapidly. If we do not start to really understand this harsh reality and reverse it, humanity will not survive,” said Jason Alexander (Seinfeld bald guy).

Whether it’s Colorado or California or Cancun—we face accelerating consequences playing out across the globe in 2010.  Each problem you read about zooms in on your state and the United States IF we continue adding sheer population overload.  Nothing will be gained and everything will be degraded if we continue on this path.

As a world traveler across six continents, I witnessed the consequences of overpopulation in South America, China, Bangladesh, Mexico and Indonesia.  Overpopulation is THE single gravest issue facing America and humanity in the 21^stcentury.  It’s time we stop celebrating it, but work toward stabilizing it throughout the world.

Let’s engage our aggregate power to make ‘hyper-population growth’ the new buzz word of 2010 and force it into the national spotlight. America must change course and avoid adding another 100 million people to our civilization.

We must entertain:  “US Sustainable Population Policy”; “US Water Usage Policy”; “US Environmental Impact Policy.”  “US Sustainable Immigration Policy of fewer than 100,000 annually.”

“We must alert and organize the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root cause of our environmental crisis—exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Over-consumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.”  Oceanographer Jacques Yves Cousteau

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Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border.  In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece.  He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges.  He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com  He is the author of:  America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans.  Copies available:  1 888 280 7715