Overpopulation is a Life Changer

This is just a rant.  A rant about people and how they (we) live their (our) lives.

I remember hearing this summer about a drought in Texas, farm animals were starving to death because there were no crops.  If we suppose this is an act of global warming and we can link it to human activity, I wonder how many people affected by the drought changed their way of living. 

Did any of them drive their car less?  Did any of then consume less junk that they do not need anyhow just for the benefit of reducing factory emissions, or did they continue their consumer happy, greedy, lifestyle? 

Did anyone in Texas think "Whoa this is getting worse, gotta do something."?  Probably not.

A lot of people only live for the here and now, I want this, I want that, they do not think of long term implications such as destruction of the planet used to make the item, waste, or even debt.

The same thing is true of family planning, or more correctly, lack of family planning.  "I want a kid" is the thought, never mind if the person is ready (financially, emotionally) to be a parent, or if the planet even needs more kids.  All that matters to a person is that they want a baby, then another, and another.  The next thing you know they are complaining about how tired they are, how much work three kids are and how they have no money.

How is this connected to the drought in Texas?   I almost forgot.  I guess what I am saying is that if we are having more weather problems, and if they are related to human activity, why would anyone who is so concerned continue to pump out children?  If thousands of cattle are dying because we cannot feed them, what are we going to feed our people if we have drought after drought knocking off cattle, and more and more people wanting to be fed? 

It's a no brainer really, less people equals fewer problems, but most of us will be dead before the real crisis hits, it will be felt by our kids and grandkids - and the more of them we have made, the sooner the real problems will be realized...

Human Overpopulation, what do we owe Nature?

As human populations increase, populations of other species fall.  Although few people are aware, we are living in a time scientists have called the Holocene extinction event.  Plants and animal species are going extinct at alarming rates. Undoubtedly some species have gone extinct before we were even aware of their very existence. Other species we wiped out and watched them vanish from the face of the earth, the passenger pigeon being a perfect example of such an extinction.

Some scientists have suggested that over 50,000 species are going extinct every year. Most of these extinctions will be unnoticed and undocumented as they represent flora and fauna we never even knew existed.

Today we continue to control the populations of other species; sometimes directly as when we control the population growth through systematic slaughter, culling, and spay/neuter programs, sometimes indirectly, as when introduced species become invasive and kill other species.

We select which species are important to us, which we dislike, and have decided that the human species is the most important of all. It is extremely ironic that our own species is allowed to reach the numbers it has, topping 7 billion people as of October, 2011, while we try to control so many other populations.

We find it easier to kill off seals so they do not eat “our fish” rather than restricting our population growth, or our consumption of fish. For some reason we have decided that we need to cut the rain forest at a rate where we consume nature faster than it can recover. We decide what are weeds, and remove them because they do not benefit us.  We have allowed humanity to build a large dept to nature that few are interested in repaying.

Do we have the right do destroy other species to maintain our own?

What Debt do we Owe Nature?

I beleive we owe nature a huge debt, one which it seems only a few are trying to repay by living a more sustainable existance, while others are content to consume all they want, have all the kids they want, and live like there is no tomorrow.  Indeed there may be no tomorrow if people do not change their ways.

Controlling our own population is key to our own survival.  If we continue to destroy the environment we doom ourselves to extinction.  Sadly many people reject the notion of human overpopulation, they see it only as an issue of food, not an issue of larger proportions.  If we can control the population of so many other species why do so few people realize there is an issue with the population of the human species and the impact it has on nature?

We owe it not only to nature to control our population, but to ourselves.  We need to realize that we need nature for our own survival and cannot continue to upset the balance of things.  A good example of this would be the Aral Sea, were an entire ecosystem was destroyed, just so we could have a bit of cotton.

We need to realize that it is nature that keeps us alive, not the dollar bill, or large house we live in, or the car we drive.  We need to place the same interest on controlling our population as we do that of other species if we want to continue our existance here, because currently we are consuming resources at alarming rates and driving other species to extinction, and for what?

What debt do we owe nature?  We owe nature our lives.

It is hard to Write about Human Overpopulation

Well, I haven't really written anything on this blog for some time, so I thought I should. Overpopulation has been a concern of mine since I was young. I think I was tuned into this global problem after watching a television series called Logan's Run (it was also a movie), and watching the city I grew up in flood over onto farm land reinforced my concern.

I think I have been ignoring this blog because it seems like I am only preaching to the choir, other people who know what the problem is and are equally as powerless to stop it. The frustration behind seeing a problem that so many are in denial of is exhausting. I cannot help but wonder why so few people are aware that human overpopulation is a real problem. So many people say “Overpopulation is a myth, we are no where near the earth's maximum population”. I think perhaps they are in denial, then I think perhaps they are just stupid, or really bad at math.  No, you really cannot fit all of the earth's people easily onto a state the size of Texas. 

I guess some people think that the maximum population situation is when one person too many is born and God steps in to shut down the planet or something. They do not realize that we are already in a crisis, already relying heavily on non-renewable resources (the ones we never get back), and using up renewable ones at a rate faster than they can be renewed (do the math, that doesn't look good).

People are living mostly for the here and now, and not thinking of the future, after all most of us will be dead before things are so bad that drastic action will have to be taken. Oh wait, drastic action has already been taken, has it not? One-child policies? What about famine? Is mother nature taking drastic action just as Thomas Malthus predicted over 100 years ago?

Most countries will do nothing to stop population growth, more people mean more tax dollars flowing to the top, and of course it would be political suicide for any elected official to suggest population control measures.

What can we, as people on a planet flooded with 7 billion souls, do? I guess we can try to educate others. Educate others to be responsible, consume less, reproduce less, and maybe not try to live as long. Educating others to adopt our ways of thinking on the problems of overpopulation is really the toughest part, its easy to preach to the choir, but to get others to sing along is a bit tougher.

I guess that is why I have not written here for so long. Writing to my pet advice blog is easy, people come there looking for help, looking for information, people just do not spend the same time looking up information on overpopulation unless it is already something they know about.