Part 19: The 7th billion human on planet Earth—humans and the rest of the planet

Contributed by: Frosty Wooldridge  

By Frosty Wooldridge

Part 19: Humans and the rest

“If present growth trends in population, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth will be reached sometime in the next 100 years.”  The Club of Rome 1972

In October of 2011, the 7th billion human being will land on this planet.  From that threshold, humans will continue multiplying by 1.0 billion every 13 years to reach more than 10 billion within 39 years at the mid century.  The ramifications stagger the mind of any thinking American.  This series will give you an idea of what our civilization faces. 

In this series, it’s the things that you don’t see that undermine Mother Nature’s ability to function for all living creatures and plants on this planet. While the environment ‘seems’ steady and dependable, look at the tornadoes across the Midwest in the past week or the eruption of Iceland’s volcano that shut down air traffic in the past month. Or huge whale die-offs from eating plastics now endemic to our oceans.

HUMANS AND THE REST OF THE PLANET

In his book, Too Many People, Lindsey Grant addresses such things as our energy depletion, food crisis and much more. You may find his book at www.sevenlockspress.com and www.amazon.com . Grant is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Population Affairs.

“The President’s Acid Rain Review Committee raised the most frightening environmental issue of all in 1983,” said Grant. “It pointed out that soil microorganisms are particularly susceptible to a change in acidity and warned: “It is just this bottom part of the biological cycle that is responsible for the recycling of nitrogen and carbon in the food chain. The proper function of the denitrifying microbes is a fundamental requirement upon which the entire biosphere depends. The evidence that increased acidity is perturbing populations of microorganisms is scanty, but the prospect of such an occurrence is grave.”"

Grant comes to a most anxiety-provoking understanding that human activity could make this planet uninhabitable by destroying microorganisms to stabilize the system.

“We’re all in this together,” said Grant. “Including the microbes.”

You might compare microbes to the tiny circuit cards in a flat screen television. While you see the ‘big colorful picture’, you don’t see the operations behind the screen that make it possible. Most Americans couldn’t explain ‘how’ televisions work. They only know how to push the buttons on their remote controls. If a TV or computer fails to operate, humans must call in an expert.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the microbes that make this planet livable, we humans don’t enjoy any experts that know how to ‘fix’ what we break. They feed on us and they work for us. They can mutate faster than we can mutate to adjust for changes. Microbes will continue on this planet long after our species vanishes.

“We have not yet seriously begun to learn how to live with this cantankerous but essential invisible world,” said Grant. “Until we learn a lot more about our relationship with that microbial world, wisdom would suggest that we pursue the alteration of the environment with much more caution. Technology must not be under pressure to produce more food, or develop new toxins to deal with pests, multiply the pharmacopoeia we already have, or tinker with incessantly with the environment to keep up with rising human needs.

“A sane species, if it had the knowledge we have, would step back from this blind experimentation with our life-support systems. It would deliberately seek to move back to a level of economic activity that left much of the non-human world intact to buffer the changes we inflict on it.”

As Grant describes and I witnessed with my own eyes in my world travels, we humans gallop toward a colossal if not unimaginable collusion with the biology of the planet and our own numbers. Our species represents a ‘malignant’ growth, essentially a ‘cancer’ that feeds on the host until it destabilizes the host and kills it-thus killing itself.

As Grant said, “Our success has become our failure.”

And, as projections show, the U.S. continues on its path to add 100 million people within 25 years. Is this what we want for our children?

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In a five minute astoundingly simple yet brilliant video, “Immigration, Poverty, and Gum Balls”, Roy Beck, director of www.numbersusa.ORG, graphically illustrates the impact of overpopulation.  Take five minutes to see for yourself:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE&feature=player_embedded

“Immigration by the numbers—off the chart” by Roy Beck

This 10 minute demonstration shows Americans the results of unending mass immigration on the quality of life and sustainability for future generations: in a word “Mind boggling!”  www.NumbersUSA.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muw22wTePqQ

This is the best website to start:  www.numbersusa.org ; watch Roy Beck’s “Immigration by the Numbers” at 14 minutes. Bi-partisan and very effective. Become a faxer of pre-written letters to your reps to make positive  change.

Visit www.TheSocialContract.com for the best information on what we face as a civilization as to overpopulation, energy, immigration and much more.

Canada www.immigrationwatchcanada.org ; in Australia www.population.org.au and[email protected]; in Great Britain www.populationmatters.org ; and dozens of other sites accessed at www.frostywooldridge.com.   In Florida, www.flimen.org .

Must see DVD: “Blind Spot” www.snagfilms.com/films/title/blind_spot/ , This movie illustrates America’s future without oil, water and other resources to keep this civilization functioning. It’s a brilliant educational movie! www.blindspotdoc.com

Must see: Rapid Population Decline, seven minute video by Dr. Jack Alpert-

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTWduFB_RX0

Must see and funny: www.growthbusters.org ; www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXSTrW_dARc
Dave Gardner’s Polar Bear in Bedroom:

growthbusters.org/2010/03/save-the-polar-bear-in-your-bedroom ; Dave Gardner, President, Citizen-Powered Media ; Producing the Documentary, GROWTH BUSTERS; presents Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity, Join the cause at www.growthbusters.org ;760 Wycliffe Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80906 USA; +1 719-576-5565

Check out this link with Wooldridge on bicycle and Lester Brown and panel discussion:

www.upnorthmedia.org/watchupnorthtv.asp?SDBFid=1631

Tomorrow’s Americaproject on www.youtube.com/contemporarylearning.

Producer: GEORGE A. COLBURNwww.tomorrowsamerica.com

DC: 202-258-4887

Email: [email protected]

Link to www.tomorrowsamerica.com for more discussions on America’s predicament.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

www.starbrightmediacorp.com

www.tomorrowsamerica.com

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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