- Marilyn Hempel, Editor at www.PopulationPress.org presents
compelling evidence for readers to understand future ramifications of overpopulation
within America and around the world.
-
- Recently, she featured a piece by world famous
Lester R. Brown of Earth Policy Institute at www.earth-policy.org .
He spelled it out for leaders and average citizens alike.
-
- Lester R. Brown, A Civilizational Tipping
Point, said, "Although world oil production has exceeded new oil discoveries
by a wide margin for more than 20 years, only Sweden and Iceland actually
have anything that remotely resembles a plan to effectively cope with a
shrinking supply of oil.
-
- "In recent years there has been a growing
concern over thresholds or tipping points in nature. For example, scientists
worry about when the shrinking population of an endangered species will
fall to a point from which it cannot recover. Marine biologists are concerned
about the point where overfishing will trigger the collapse of a fishery.
-
- "We know there were social tipping points
in earlier civilizations, points at which they were overwhelmed by the
forces threatening them. For instance, at some point the irrigation-related
salt buildup in their soil overwhelmed the capacity of the Sumerians to
deal with it. With the Mayans, there came a time when the effects of cutting
too many trees and the associated loss of topsoil were simply more than
they could manage.
-
- "The social tipping points that lead to
decline and collapse when societies are overwhelmed by a single threat
or by simultaneous multiple threats are not always easily anticipated.
As a general matter, more economically advanced countries can deal with
new threats more effectively than developing countries can. For example,
while governments of industrial countries have been able to hold HIV infection
rates among adults under 1%, many developing-country governments have failed
to do so and are now struggling with much higher infection rates. This
is most evident in some southern African countries, where 20% or more of
adults are infected.
-
- "A similar situation exists with population
growth. While populations in nearly all industrial countries except the
United States have stopped growing, rapid growth continues in nearly all
the countries of Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent.
Nearly all of the 80 million people being added to world population each
year are born in countries where natural support systems are already deteriorating
in the face of excessive population pressure, in the countries least able
to support them. In these countries, the risk of state failure is growing.
-
- CHINA ADDS EIGHT MILLION ANNUALLY, INDIA ADDS 12 MILLION
ANNUALLY, BANGLADESH EXPECTS AN ADDED 100 MILLION WITHIN THIS CENTURY,
USA EXPECTS ADDED 100 MILLION IN 25 YEARS
-
- "Some issues seem to exceed even the management
skills of the more advanced countries, however," said Brown. "When
countries first detected falling underground water tables, it was logical
to expect that governments in affected countries would quickly raise water
use efficiency and stabilize population in order to stabilize aquifers.
Unfortunately, not one country-industrial or developing-has done so. Two
failing states where overpumping water and security-threatening water shortages
loom large are Pakistan and Yemen.
-
- "Although the need to cut carbon emissions
has been evident for some time, not one country has succeeded in becoming
carbon-neutral. Thus far this has proved too difficult politically for
even the most technologically advanced societies. Could rising carbon dioxide
levels in the atmosphere prove to be as unmanageable for our early twenty-first
century civilization as rising salt levels in the soil were for the Sumerians
in 4000 BC?
-
- "Another potentially severe stress on governments
is the coming decline in oil production. Although world oil production
has exceeded new oil discoveries by a wide margin for more than 20 years,
only Sweden and Iceland actually have anything that remotely resembles
a plan to effectively cope with a shrinking supply of oil.
-
- "This is not an exhaustive inventory of
unresolved problems, but it does give a sense of how their number is growing
as we fail to solve existing problems even as new ones are being added
to the list. Analytically, the challenge is to assess the effects of mounting
stresses on the global system. These stresses are perhaps most evident
in their effect on food security, which was the weak point of many earlier
civilizations that collapsed.
-
- "Several converging trends are making it
difficult for the world's farmers to keep up with the growth in food demand.
Prominent among these are falling water tables, the growing conversion
of cropland to nonfarm uses, and more extreme climate events, including
crop-withering heat waves, droughts, and floods. As the stresses from these
unresolved problems accumulate, weaker governments are beginning to break
down.
-
- "Compounding these problems, the United
States, the world's breadbasket, has dramatically increased the share of
its grain harvest going to fuel ethanol-from 15% of the 2005 crop to more
than 25% of the 2008 crop. This ill-conceived U.S. effort to reduce its
oil insecurity helped drive world grain prices to all-time highs by mid-2008,
creating unprecedented world food insecurity.
-
- "The risk is that these accumulating problems
and their consequences will overwhelm more and more governments, leading
to widespread state failure and eventually the failure of civilization.
The countries that top the list of failing states are not particularly
surprising. They include, for example, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Afghanistan,
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Haiti. And the list grows longer
each year, raising a disturbing question: How many failing states will
it take before civilization itself fails? No one knows the answer, but
it is a question we must ask.
-
- "We are in a race between tipping points
in nature and our political systems. Can we phase out coal-fired power
plants before the melting of the Greenland ice sheet becomes irreversible?
Can we gather the political will to halt deforestation in the Amazon before
its growing vulnerability to fire takes it to the point of no return? Can
we help countries stabilize population before they become failing states?
-
- "We have the technologies to restore the
earth's natural support systems, to eradicate poverty, to stabilize population,
and to restructure the world energy economy and stabilize climate. The
challenge now is to build the political will to do so. Saving civilization
is not a spectator sport. Each of us has a leading role to play."
-
- Lester R. Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute
and author of many books. Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by
Lester R. Brown (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), is available
on-line at www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4 or in bookstores.
-
- Contact Marilyn Hempel at www.PopulationPress.org or info@populationpress.org .
By snail mail: Blue Planet United, POB 7918 Redlands, CA 92375; Join her
organization! You will be glad you did!
-
- ##
-
- 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 where you can join for free and send in
pre written letters via fax. Push a couple of buttons and engage your reps.
Bipartisan and 1 million members. Fast, easy, effective!
-
- ; 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 andPublicPopForum@yahoogroups.com;
in Great Britain www.optimumpopulation.org ; and dozens of other
sites accessed at www.frostywooldridge.com.
-
- 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
-
- Must see: Rapid Population Decline, seven minute video
by Dr. Jack Alpert-
-
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTWduFB_RX0
-
- Must see and funny: www.growthbusters.org ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXSTrW_dARc
- Dave Gardner's Polar Bear in Bedroom: http://growthbusters.org/2010/03/save-the-polar-bear-in-your-bedroom ;
Dave Gardner, President, Citizen-Powered Media ; Producing the Documentary, GROWTH
BUSTERS; presents Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity, Join
the cause at www<http://www.growthbusters.com/>.growthbusters.org
;760 Wycliffe Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80906 USA; +1 719-576-5565
-
- Check out this link with Wooldridge on bicycle and Lester
Brown and panel discussion:
-
- http://www.upnorthmedia.org/watchupnorthtv.asp?SDBFid=1631
-
- Tomorrow's Americaproject on www.youtube.com/contemporarylearning.
-
- Producer: GEORGE A. COLBURNwww.tomorrowsamerica.com
-
- DC: 202-258-4887; Email: gac@starbrightmc.com
-
- Link to www.tomorrowsamerica.com for more discussions
on America's predicament.
-
- FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.starbrightmediacorp.com ; www.tomorrowsamerica.com
-
- Dear fellow Americans, Canadians, Australians, United
Kingdom, New Zealand, and planetary citizens:
-
- Re: The USA about to add 100 million people within 25
years-world to add 3 billion people in 40 years, and what actions citizens
must take in order to change course toward viable and sustainable societies--interview
with Frosty Wooldridge
-
- If you have time, you may enjoy a one hour interview
in California as I address overpopulation/immigration, not only in that
state, but nationwide and worldwide. I attempted to cover all aspects
of what our civilization faces if we continue on our overpopulation path
toward adding 100 million people within 25 years here in the USA. While
we may become emotional around the immigration issue--in the end--it's
about too many people, too little water, too little resources, vanishing
carrying capacity, species extinction, acidified oceans and dwindling energy
reserves that will render this civilization and all 'oil-dependent' civilizations
unsustainable. Away from the 'emotional' responses, we find ourselves in
a great deal of trouble on multiple levels. I attempt to bring that reality
to the forefront. Additionally, below, you may read from other top world
minds and writers as to the long term consequences of continued human overpopulation.
-
- Interview with Frosty Wooldridge--Posted on the
archive of the Stark Truth: http://reasonradionetwork.com/?p=8893
-
- Thank you for appearing for an excellent & informative
show!
- Regards, Mike Conner
- Voice of Reason Broadcast Network
- http://reasonradionetwork.com
-
- For further information, please contact me at www.frostywooldridge.com , frostyw@juno.com.
-
-
- Population Vs Nature - Civilization Tipping
Point - 2
By Frosty Wooldridge
9-8-10
-
- "Can you think of any problem in any area of human
endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution
is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases
of population, locally, nationally, or globally." Dr. Albert Bartlett www.albartlett.org
-
- "A simple look at the upward path of global greenhouse
emissions indicates we will continue to squeeze the trigger on the gun
we have put to our own head." Eugene Linden, The Winds of Change:
Climate, Weather and the Destruction of Civilization
-
- "The ship is already starting to spin out of control.
We may soon lose all chance of grabbing the wheel. Humanity faces a genuinely
new situation. It is not an environmental crisis in the accepted sense.
It is a crisis for the entire life-support system for our civilization
and our species." Fred Pearce, The Last Generation: How Nature Will
take Her Revenge for Climate Change
-
- "At this point, it's almost certainly too late
to manage a transition to sustainability on a global or national scale,
even if the political will to attempt it existed, which it clearly does
not. Our civilization is in the early stages of the same curve of decline
and fall as so many others have followed before it. What likely lies in
wait for us is a long, uneven decline into a new Dark Age from which,
centuries from now, the civilizations of the future will gradually emerge."
John Michael Greer, The Long Descent
-
- "We are strong and adaptable animals and can certainly
make a new life on the hotter Earth, but there will only be a fraction
of inhabitable land left. Soon we face the appalling question of who m
can we let aboard the lifeboats? And who must we reject? There will be
great clamor from climate refugees seeking a safe haven in those few parts
where the climate is tolerable and food available. We will need a new set
of rules for limiting the population in climate oases." James Lovelock,
The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A final Warning
-
- "Imagine we live on a planet. Not our cozy, taken
for granted planet, but a planet, a real one, with melting poles and dying
forests and a heaving, corrosive sea, raked by winds, strafed by storms,
scorched by heat. And inhospitable place. It needs a new name, Eaarth."
Bill McKibben, Eaarth: Making a life on a Tough new Planet
-
- "The cheap oil age created an artificial bubble
of plentitude for a period not much longer than a human lifetime....so
I hazard to assert that as oil ceases to be cheap and the world reserves
move toward depletion, we will be left with an enormous population...that
the ecology of the earth will not support. The journey back toward non-oil
population homeostasis will not be pretty. We will discover the hard way
that population hyper growth was simply a side-effect of the oil age.
It was a condition, not a problem with a solution. That is what happened
and we are stuck with it." James Howard Kunstler
-
- "We must alert and organize the world's people
to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root
causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful
consumption of irreplaceable resources. Over-consumption and overpopulation
underlie every environmental problem we face today." Jacques-Yves
Cousteau
-
- "As we go from this happy hydrocarbon bubble we
have reached now to a renewable energy resource economy, which we do this
century, will the "civil" part of civilization survive? As we
both know there is no way that alternative energy sources can supply the
amount of per capita energy we enjoy now, much less for the 9 billion expected
by 2050. And energy is what keeps this game going. We are involved in a
Faustian bargain-selling our economic souls for the luxurious life of the
moment, but sooner or later the price has to be paid." Walter Youngquist
-
- "The U.S. will set a record in the rate of rise-and
fall of an empire. Between wide open borders and fall of the dollar and
growing population against a declining resource base, the US will be defeated
from within. Mobs will rule the streets in the nation that is now the third
largest in the world and unable to support its population except by taking
resources from other countries." Arnold Toynbee
-
- "If present growth trends in population, industrialization,
pollution, food production and resource depletion continue unchanged, the
limits to growth will be reached sometime in the next 100 years."
The Club of Rome 1972
-
- "The power of population is so superior to the
power of earth to produce subsistence to humanity that premature death
must in some shape or other visit the human race." Thomas Malthus
1798
-
- _____________
-
- 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 atwww.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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