Part 34: We must check unbridled population growth to save our environment

 

In his landmark book, Breeding Ourselves to Death, Lawrence Lader opened the discussion 40 years ago, but again, no one took a stand!  The Sierra Club avoided it.  Every environmental group out to save animals, land, water, air and bio-life—avoided a word about human overpopulation. 

 

As Paul Ehrlich said, “All causes are lost causes without limiting human population.  In more than three decades after Lader’s book, the drop among rich nations has been welcome, since it has lessened their already disastrous impact on Earth’s life support systems.  On the negative side, world population has soared from 3.0 billion to 6.8 billion, and the United States has clearly claimed the title of ‘most populated nation’.  It’s now in third place in brute numbers, and with its high level of per capita consumption, it is responsible for, by far, the greatest national share of global environmental destruction.”

 

Ironically, as Brian Williams, Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer report on water shortages, gridlock, climate change and starving people, they never ‘touch’ the population issue. It’s like a sacred cow. 

 

In India ‘sacred’ cows roam everywhere, dropping their waste and creating a mess—but as long as their religion makes the cows ‘sacred’, no one can complain or take action.  In America, the ‘population issue’ remains our sacred cow.  No matter how much environmental destruction, Americans never connect the population numbers as the root cause.  Call it mass denial or selective stupidity.

 

Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “Overpopulation is one of the most critical world problems of our time that endangers economic progress and peace.”

 

If you look at the Iraq and Afghanistan war, it’s not about ‘terror’ but about ‘oil’.  If you look at the “War on Poverty” in the United States started by President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s “Great Society”, over 45 years later, 13.4 million American children live below the poverty level and another 41.8 million Americans subsit on food stamps.  A mind-numbing 72 percent of black mothers remain single while living on taxpayer welfare.  Similar numbers apply to Hispanic single mothers and a growing number of white single mothers.  All the while, the USA adds 3.1 million immigrants annually—with no end in sight.

 

Even President Johnson in 1967 said, “I will seek new ways to use our knowledge to help deal with the explosion in world population and the growing scarcity in world resources.”

 

At that time, the U.S. housed 195 million people.  Since then, we added 115 million to the USA from desperate immigrants fleeing their own overloaded countries.  The PEW Center Report, Fogel/Martin “U.S. Population Projections and U.S. Census Bureau show us adding another 100 million by 2035—a scant 25 years from 2010.

 

While we race toward “Peak Oil”, we continue racing toward maximum population loading of America—to exhaust our major energy source that drives and feeds our civilization—even faster! 

 

What’s behind massive population growth?  Ancient religions like the Catholic Church, Islam, Hindu and others!  The Catholic Church represents one of the greatest obstacles for birth control and family planning in the world.  It’s highly organized and controls the levers of power in all countries it dominates as well as the United States.

 

The Catholic Church rants against birth control while 18 million humans starve to death annually. (Source: www.WorldHealthOrganization.com)

Amazingly enough, church groups in the U.S. pitch their painful ‘Save the Children’ TV commercials, “You can save a child for only .88 cents a day.”  But they never tell you that the more children you save, the more will starve in the future.  Each year, another 80 million children show up on the planet, net gain. And, another 18 million starve to death.  Thus, years down the road, the starvation rates will become magnified into the millions while today, over 3.1 billion humans subsist on $2.00 per day.

 

Ironically, the “Father of the Vietnam War”, Robert S. McNamara said, “A humane but massive reduction in the world rate of population growth must be made.”

 

Even President Nixon said, “Population growth is a world problem which no country can ignore.  The United Nations and other international bodies should take leadership in responding fully.”

 

As to my world travels on six continents since those epic pronouncements in the late 60s and 70s, I find it troubling that the United States steered completely away from any mention of overpopulation. While American women utilized birth control to bring down the birth rate to 2.03 per woman on average, the world continued on its net gain of 1.0 billion every 13 years. 

 

While the USA continues accepting a mind-numbing 3.1 million immigrants annually, the line grows by 80 million annually. 

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:

 

While I interviewed on a radio show yesterday for 90 minutes in Baltimore, a woman wrote me that, “Overpopulation is not a problem in the United States.”  She said it emphatically, with total self-assuredness to the point that she could not be swayed with facts, figures or other realities.  Millions of Americans share her total misunderstanding of her own situation—and that of her kids and grandkids when this population “monster” really hits the USA.

 

They watch, listen and read about water shortages, gridlocked traffic, species extinction, air pollution, diseases and multiple symptoms, but refuse to connect the dots as to their and our predicament in the United States. Thus, none of our Congress or this president addresses it.

Therefore, we continue racing toward an added 100 million, and after that, another 100 million and again, another 100 million to double U.S. population to 600 million by 2060, give or take a few years.

 

“We have inherited an incredibly beautiful and complex garden, but the trouble is that we have been appallingly bad gardeners. We have not bothered to acquaint ourselves with the simplest principles of gardening. By neglecting our garden, we are storing up for ourselves, in the not very distant future, a world catastrophe as bad as any atomic war, and we are doing it with all the bland complacency of an idiot child chopping up a Rembrandt with a pair of scissors. We go on, year after year, all over the world, creating dust bowls and erosion, cutting down forests and overgrazing our grasslands, polluting one of our most vital commodities — water — with industrial filth and all the time we are breeding with the ferocity of the Brown Rat, and wondering why there is not enough food to go round. We now stand so aloof from nature that we think we are God. This has always been a dangerous supposition.”—Gerald Durrell (1966)

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“Imagine a country which employs the principles of personal responsibility,  freedom and accountability for future generations. Everything you do-counts!  If you do nothing, that counts likewise. When you read sobering information, do you want to give up or fall apart? Or, do you want to engage like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George and Martha Washington, John and Abigail Adams,  Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Dr. Martin Luther King, Oprah, Barbara Jordan, John Muir and other Americans. You represent the Jefferson’s, Oprah’s and Dr. King’s of the 21st century.  Consider it your honor and privilege to become a part of the solutions.  Engage the present to change the future! Become an agent of the change you wish to see.”  FW

 

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:

 

 

If any of us, no matter what our race, creed or color might be, refuse to engage our U.S. Congress as we have not for 30 years as to the population/immigration equation-our children will find themselves living in a terribly degraded America where the American Dream will be described by the history books as a 'fleeting fantasy' from the era of 1950 to 2010.

 

These are several of the top organizations where you can take collective action to change the course of American history as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Take collective action at:

 

This is the best website to start:  www.numbersusa.com ; 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.

 

Also: www.fairus.org ; www.capsweb.org ; www.thesocialcontract.com ; www.populationmedia.org ; www.worldpopulationbalance.org ; www.populationconnection.org ; www.quinacrine.com ; www.familyplanning.org/ , www.skil.org ; www.growthbusters.com; www.populationpress.org ; www.thinkpopulation.org ; www.carryingcapacity.org ; www.balance.org ; www.controlgrowth.org ; in Canada www.immigrationwatchcanada.org ; in Australia www.population.org.au andPublicPopForum@yahoogroups.com; in Great Britain www.optimumpopulation.org ; and dozens of other sites accessed at www.frostywooldridge.com.

 

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-

 

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:

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

DC: 202-258-4887

 

Email: gac@starbrightmc.com

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

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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