Too Many People

Primitive people with a very low level of technology can nonetheless destroy their environment by sheer numbers.  If they exceed the carrying capacity of their habitat, they will eventually starve, but that won’t happen until they have hunted down all the animals and eaten all the plants.

The world obviously has too many people.  Given the large amount of resources many of us use, the pace of environmental degradation is ever faster.  The earth has no place untouched by humans--mid-ocean, top of Mount Everest, South Pole, or Amazon jungle--all are affected, polluted, and overrun with our species.

China might be a major source of greenhouse gases, but at least it is one country that is trying to control its population, and doing a reasonably good job of it.  What are we doing?  

I’m a member of the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and Nature Conservancy.  None of those groups advocates population control.  Perhaps they saw what happened to Planned Parenthood, demonized by the Republican congress and presidential candidates.  Perhaps it is easier to talk about endangered species than it is to talk about limiting the number of kids people should have.  

We had better start talking about this topic.  Our churches need to examine their policies, which are more in line with repopulating the western world after the Black Death than living in a world of seven billion people and counting.  Our politicians need to address this issue.  Finally, our environmental groups need to risk unpopularity and lead the dialogue.  Nothing else we do for the environment will have the same lasting impact as a reduction in population.