Replies

1. 
   user-788447 | Jul 16, 2011 06:10am | #1

   I tried to provide a link to an accompanying video of commentary on the current state of population stress on the environment but it wouldn't make it past the spam filter.

   
2. 
   user-869687 | Jul 16, 2011 02:52pm | #2

   You know people say, "Yeah they warned us about this back in the 60's, and since then the population has doubled, but look we're still here. Therefore the earth's carrying capacity for humans must evidently be infinite. Problem solved."

   The most you can do as an individual is to challenge the idea that reproduction is virtuous, or that consumption shows how much God has blessed you, or that material wealth proves how valuable you are to society. Choose not to produce any more people, and explain the reasoning behind this to anyone who will listen.

3. 
   user-869687 | Jul 20, 2011 03:46am | #3

   For another film that does a great job summarizing our current environmental predicament, see Blind Spot, currently available for streaming on Netflix. There are dozens of statements in this film that are worth repeating over and over, and several that could be T-shirt slogans. Here's one: If we don't do something about the human population, nature will.

4. 
   user-788447 | Jul 20, 2011 08:10am | #4

   Thomas,
   Phillip Longman in the conversation referred to in comment #1 states that Paul Ehrlich's determinations in the Population Bomb though valuable were over simplistic and proved to be off. He sites current demographic statistics that in several affluent nations - Germany, Japan(?) - that population rates are decreasing. According to him the population rate in the states has plateaued if you take out immigration.

   A paradox Phillip points to also (similiar to Jevon's paradox) is that reducing population growth does not correspond to reduced stress on the environment. Affluent countries with low population growths have a much higher per capita consumption that lesser affluent countries where the population has increasing rapidly.

   For the US Phillip claims the real problem issue in our near future is not population growth but the demographic phenomena of a population aging in the suburbs.

5. 
   user-869687 | Jul 20, 2011 02:01pm | #5

   The US population has never stopped growing, and the people of our great nation individually consume more resources and generate more garbage and pollution (to say the least) than the people of other countries. That's why there's no getting off the hook for the impact your kids have (and will continue to have) on the planet.

   To be sincere as an environmentalist means not pretending that we're just a teeny bit destructive, so we just need to make teeny little changes in our behavior to correct the declining health of our life support system. The reality is that ecological decline is massive! If all we do is slow the destruction by a few percentage points, all that buys is a few more years before the fan catches up to the ****.