- A quick glance at the human misery and suffering brought
about by the flooding in Pakistan moves anyone to tears. The regular CNN,
FOX and NBC depictions of human tragedy overwhelms anyone's senses.
-
- Every international relief agency from the United Nations
to the International Red Cross calls on governments around the planet to
send relief, food, water, shelter and medical teams.
-
- Unfortunately, that will not help their short term and
long term predicament. At 82 million people in a tiny landmass called Pakistan,
that country, without any concern for birth control and family planning-expects
to add another 80 million people by mid century. Even today, they cannot
feed or maintain clean drinking water for their overloaded population.
Ironically, ancient religions such as Islam fail to understand carrying
capacity, water, environment, resources and quality of life issues that
drill down into the harsh reality that behind all the misery suffered in
third world countries stems from two accelerating dilemmas: illiteracy
and human overpopulation. Without dealing with overpopulation, no country
can deal with illiteracy.
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- As the third world countries grow by 77 million annually,
they cannot educate their citizens and they cannot intellectually move
past their cultural paradigms and human suffering. Dr. Garret Hardin, author, Stalking
the Wild Taboo, brings home their dilemma: "Those of us who are deeply
concerned about population and the environment -"eco-nuts," we're
called, - are accused of seeing herbicides in trees, pollution in running
brooks, radiation in rocks, and overpopulation everywhere. There is merit
in the accusation. "I was in Calcutta when the cyclone struck East
Bengal in November 1970. Early dispatches spoke of 15,000 dead, but the
estimates rapidly escalated to 2,000,000 and then dropped back to 500,000.
A nice round number: it will do as well as any, for we will never know.
The nameless ones who died, "unimportant" people far beyond the
fringes of the social power structure, left no trace of their existence.
Pakistani parents repaired the population loss in just 40 days, and the
world turned its attention to other matters. "What killed those unfortunate
people? "The cyclone," newspapers said. But one can just as logically
say that overpopulation killed them. The Gangetic Delta is barely above
sea level. Every year several thousand people are killed in quite ordinary
storms. If Pakistan were not overcrowded, no sane man would bring his family
to such a place.
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- Ecologically speaking, a delta belongs to the river and
the sea; man obtrudes there at his peril. "In the web of life every
event has many antecedents. Only by an arbitrary decision can we designate
a single antecedent as "cause." Our choice is biased - biased
to protect our egos against the onslaught of unwelcome truths. As T.S.
Eliot put it in Burnt Norton: "Go, go, go," said the bird, "Human
kind cannot bear very much reality." "Were we to identify overpopulation
as the cause of a half-million deaths, we would threaten ourselves with
a question to which we do not know the answer: How can we control population
without recourse to repugnant measures?" said Hardin. "Fearfully
we close our minds to an inventory of possibilities. Instead, we say that
a cyclone caused the deaths, thus relieving ourselves of responsibility
for this and future catastrophes. "Fate" is so comforting. "Every
year we list tuberculosis, leprosy, enteric diseases, or animal parasites
as the "cause of death" of millions of people. It is well known
that malnutrition is an important antecedent of death in all these categories;
and that malnutrition is connected with overpopulation. But overpopulation
is not called the cause of death. We cannot bear the thought. "People
are dying now of respiratory diseases in Tokyo, Birmingham, and Gary, because
of the "need" for more industry. The "need" for more
food justifies over fertilization of the land, leading to eutrophication
of the waters, and lessened fish production - which leads to more "need"
for food. "What will we say when the power shuts down some fine summer
on our eastern seaboard and several thousand people die of heat prostration?
Will we blame the weather? Or the power companies for not building enough
generators? Or the eco-nuts for insisting on pollution controls? "One
thing is certain: we won't blame the deaths on overpopulation. No one ever
dies of overpopulation. It is unthinkable." As Hardin said, we abhor
dealing with reality. In fact, in Joel Kotkin's recent book, he 'celebrates'
adding 100 million people to the United States as if it amounts to a "Red
Badge of Courage" in a diminishing world. He speaks on NPR with glowing
reviews from Jennifer Ludden. He enjoys interviews in papers as he crosses
the country to pitch his book. He leads Americans down a primrose path
of more denial, stupidity and ignorance of their predicament. Wouldn't
Pakistan be better off with only 10 million people? Wouldn't it serve its
own citizens to engage birth control and family planning. Wouldn't it better
to life within a safe and sustainable country? Would it be much more enjoyable
a life experience to live with dignity and equality? Answer: you betcha!
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- 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 www.numbersusa.com ; 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 and PublicPopForum@yahoogroups.com ;
in Great Britainwww.optimumpopulation.org ; and dozens of other sites
accessed at www.frostywooldridge.com.
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- Must see DVD: "Blind Spot" http://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
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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
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