The Hellhole Into Which We Fall
By Frosty Wooldridge (09/04/07)
How arrogant or stupid can the leaders of the United States be? How sheep-like can American citizens remain? What kind of a future do we bequeath to our children?
With all the signs of climate change crashing onto our planet, with all the gridlocked cities, with all the air pollution—wouldn’t you think we would connect the dots?
Instead, like the passengers on the Titanic, we sail along thinking that the captain and crew know what they’re doing! They don’t!
Instead, we’re being led to the slaughterhouse like cattle to get butchered.
If you’re stuck in traffic daily that moves like hardened cement, wouldn’t you rail at the cause? While your kids suffer asthma, wouldn’t you rail against the obvious reasons? With your schools overrun, wouldn’t you stand up and speak out?
Short answer: NO!
David Nicholson, writing in the Canberra Times, Australia, said, “The simplest truths are sometimes the hardest to recognize. This month, the world's population will reach 6.7 billion, en route to a newly revised global total of 9.2 billion by 2050. In April and May, economist Jeffrey Sachs devoted his BBC Reith lectures to a planet bursting at the seams.
“In the midst of all these alarms is a very quiet place in which the green lobby should be talking about human population growth. It might have been the World Population Day on Wednesday, but big environment and development groups won't be mounting a campaign on population. Their silence on population was 'deafening'.
“Today Greenpeace and Sierra Club say population is ''not an issue for us'' and describes it as ''a factor [in] but not one of the drivers of'' environmental problems.
“The green lobby's main argument is that numbers do not matter so much; it is how we live and consume that counts. Friends of the Earth even remarks that ''it is unhelpful to enter into a debate about numbers. The key issue is the need for the Government to implement policies that respect environmental limits.'' It is a statement that seems to treat population and environmental limits as entirely separate subjects.
“There are two powerful counter- arguments to this. One is common sense: that consumption and numbers matter and that if a consumer is absent (that is, unborn) then so is his or her consumption. The second is the weight of evidence.”
Nicholson continued, “The British Government's chief scientist, Sir David King, told a parliamentary inquiry last year, ''It is self-evident that the massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on biodiversity than any other single factor.'' The increase in global population over the next 40 years is roughly what the entire world population was in 1950.
Folks, they ain’t driving horse drawn buggies and riding in trains! They’re burning billions of gallons daily, billions of tons of coal and horrific volumes of natural gas.
“Ironically, the world now views climate change as the greatest environmental threat but sees the solution in primarily technical terms.”
“Yet expert bodies routinely identify human numbers as one of the main engines of climate change. Surely people are part of the solution? It is far easier to ignore the whole subject; let somebody else or nobody deal with it. This often involves intriguing verbal contortions. The '70s organization Population Countdown, having morphed into Population Concern, in 2003 rechristened itself as Interact Worldwide. Under its former name, consultants said, its funders, and future, would dry up.
Faced with escalating forecasts of housing need in the UK, one recent government projection says Britain will need 11 million more households by 2050, an increase of more than 40 per cent.
“So why doesn't the organization campaign on the issue that poses the greatest threat to rural England? The organization’s chief executive Shaun Spiers says, ''If we did, it appears unlikely that our actions would have any effect on population growth, and that would lay us open to the charge of misusing our charitable funds.'' As a result, family size is seen as an exercise in individual lifestyle choice: few people consider the consequences for the planet of their fertility decisions. That means fertility rates in the U.K. keep rising and the population keeps growing. It was Mark Twain who observed that those who refused to share vital information with others were guilty of a ''silent lie''. The green movement needs to start telling us the truth.” David Nicholson-Lord is a British environmental writer and research associate for the Optimum Population Trust.
Fellow Americans, England is an island. It’s going to add 11 million if it does nothing. Guess what? Bangladesh features 144 million people within a landmass the size of Ohio. They’re expected to double their population to 290 million by 2050. That’s like shoving most of the current US population into Ohio!
Guess what? We’re growing at 3.1 million annually! As we move into this presidential election cycle, I implore you to bring the population issue to your delegates. I beseech you to raise your voices that you don’t want to add 100 million people and more to the USA. Fellow Americans, we’re in SO much trouble. Yet, we do nothing to change our Titanic-like direction.
It’s time to change course and do it fast. The next president must stop our immigration nightmare. You must make sure he or she changes course by your collective voices of reason.
Copyright ©2007 Frosty Wooldridge All Rights Reserved.
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