I am Tired of the Ignorant who Deny that Overpopulation is a Problem

I read a news article on concerns of the growing human population and the problems of the human impact on the planet, mostly as related to the fact that we are at risk of overpopulating ourselves to extinction.

One person commented "Humans are too small of a species to cause any real impact to the planet", or something to that effect. I wonder how anyone can be so ignorant.

Anyone my age (I am nearly 50) has seen the world's population more than double and should be aware of the problems that have developed as a result (including urban sprawl).

Anyone who thinks humans do not impact things has never heard of the dodo bird, passenger pigeon, quagga, Tasmanian tiger, and so forth.

We know that cats are overpopulated.. humans are too.

Anyone who thinks humans cannot cause change has never been in a plane flying over a clear cut area, never seen an open pit mine, and has probably not heard of what we did to the Aral Sea.

It just boggles my mind how anyone can think humans are not damaging the earth.  These people are either ignorant or in denial, I assume they put their heads in the sand so they can justify living their life of excess, greed, and waste.

I think people just find it easier to deny these things than to admit that humans are not living in harmony with nature, we are not being sustainable. People do not want to change their ways so they simply deny that we are hurting the planet.

This article was originally published by me on Bubblews.

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.