Showing posts with label carrying capacity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carrying capacity. Show all posts

Friday, September 25, 2009

PEDAL TO THE METAL: SPEEDING INTO A STOP SIGN WITHOUT BRAKES

By Frosty Wooldridge

Americans, led by their indolent politicians, step on the population gas pedal at full bore into the 21st century without a map, route, plan or clue as to how they will solve their own accelerating human population numbers.

In excess of 150 million Americans live and breathe toxic air in overloaded cities. They grind their way through gridlocked traffic five days a week. They kill 44,000 fellow citizens annually in car accidents from clogged highways. Their rivers run with chemicals, fertilizers, herbicides, sewage and other contaminants enough to create 10,000 square mile dead zones where they empty into our oceans. They suffer water shortages so much so, that they completely deplete the Colorado River before it reaches the Pacific. Americans use so many chemicals to grow food; their acidified soils become more unhealthy and toxic to angleworms and nitro-fixing bacteria with each passing year.

Those chemicals in the air, soil and water create millions of cancer deaths annually around the world. Yet, no one advocates banning the contamination of this planet for future generations or the welfare of all other life on Earth.

All the while, humans burn through non-renewable resources such as oil, natural gas, minerals and metals as if there were no tomorrow. While every scientific indicator shows human activity destabilizing Earth’s climate—leaders admonish citizens to change their lights to the curly-cue mercury energy saving lights—as if THAT will solve our dilemma.

While American citizens suffer 15 million unemployed and 35 million subsisting on food stamps as well as 13.4 million Americans living in poverty—our U.S. Congress imports 160,000 foreign workers into this country every 30 days, month in and month out, year in and year out. All total, the U.S. adds 3.1 million more humans, net gain, annually on its way to adding 100 million people by 2035.

While that certain insanity continues, not one congressional member, media outlet or environmental organization addresses the obvious: we exhaust Earth’s ability to mitigate our presence on this planet. Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report dance around the population issue like a mouse trying to escape a hawk. Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes, Matt Lauer, Diane Sawyer, Harry Smith, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, Charles Gibson, Wolf Blitzer and others avoid it at all costs. Yes, they report its mounting consequences, but they won’t touch overpopulation growth.

Bryan Walsh, Time reporter, September 23, 2009, wrote a sobering column, “How much human activity can earth handle?” But nowhere in his piece did he address the population connection!

Walsh said, “The scientific name is the Holocene Age, but climatologists like to call our current climatic phase the Long Summer. The history of Earth's climate has rarely been smooth. From the moment life began on the planet billions of years ago, the climate has swung drastically and often abruptly from one state to another — from tropical swamp to frozen ice age. Over the past 10,000 years, however, the climate has remained remarkably stable by historical standards: not too warm and not too cold, or Goldilocks weather. That stability has allowed Homo sapiens, numbering perhaps just a few million at the dawn of the Holocene, to thrive; farming has taken hold and civilizations have arisen. Without the Long Summer, that never would have been possible.”

It’s all related

“But as human population has exploded over the past few thousand years, the delicate ecological balance that kept the Long Summer going has become threatened,” Walsh said. “The rise of industrialized agriculture has thrown off Earth's natural nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, leading to pollution on land and water, while our fossil-fuel addiction has moved billions of tons of carbon from the land into the atmosphere, heating the climate ever more.

“Now a new article in the Sept. 24 issue of Nature says the safe climatic limits in which humanity has blossomed are more vulnerable than ever and that unless we recognize our planetary boundaries and stay within them, we risk total catastrophe. "Human activities have reached a level that could damage the systems that keep Earth in the desirable Holocene state," writes Johan Rockstrom, executive director of the Stockholm Environmental Institute and the author of the article. "The result could be irreversible and, in some cases, abrupt environmental change, leading to a state less conducive to human development."

While we multiply our numbers, we degrade our planet-home. But you won’t see any meaningful attention to the root causes!

“Regarding climate change, for instance, Rockstrom proposes an atmospheric-carbon-concentration limit of no more than 350 parts per million — meaning no more than 350 atoms of carbon for every million atoms of air. Before the industrial age, levels were at 280 p.p.m.; currently they're at 387 p.p.m. and rising. That, scientists believe, should be enough to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, which should be safely below a climatic tipping point that could lead to the wide-scale melting of polar ice sheets, swamping coastal cities. "Transgressing these boundaries will increase the risk of irreversible climate change," writes Rockstrom.

“That's the impact of breaching only one of nine planetary boundaries that Rockstrom identifies in the paper,” Walsh said. “Other boundaries involve freshwater overuse, the global agricultural cycle and ozone loss. In each case, he scans the state of science to find ecological limits that we can't violate, lest we risk passing a tipping point that could throw the planet out of whack for human beings. It's based on a theory that ecological change occurs not so much cumulatively, but suddenly, after invisible thresholds have been reached. Stay within the lines, and we might just be all right.”

“In three of the nine cases Rockstrom has pointed out, however — climate change, the nitrogen cycle and species loss — we've already passed his threshold limits. In the case of global warming, we haven't yet felt the full effects, Rockstrom says, because carbon acts gradually on the climate — but once warming starts, it may prove hard to stop unless we reduce emissions sharply. Ditto for the nitrogen cycle, where industrialized agriculture already has humanity pouring more chemicals into the land and oceans than the planet can process, and for wildlife loss, where we risk biological collapse. "We can say with some confidence that Earth cannot sustain the current rate of loss without significant erosion of ecosystem resilience," says Rockstrom.

Walsh said, “Rockstrom's work delineates the limits to human growth — economically, demographically, ecologically — that we transgress at our peril.”

"Ongoing changes in global chemistry should alarm us about threats to the persistence of life on Earth, whether or not we cross a catastrophic threshold any time soon," writes William Schlesinger, president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in a commentary accompanying the Nature paper.

I encourage you, fellow citizen, to take action, to push this issue toward the front burner. If you don’t, as you look out across the political landscape, who will? You haven’t heard one word from anyone in Congress and even President Obama. No matter how much conservation we practice at whatever level, everything becomes negated by adding 100 million people to this civilization and another 100 million after that, etc.

We need a “US Sustainable Immigration Policy” of a maximum of 100,000 annually; “US Water Usage Policy” and “US Sustainable Population Policy” in the 21st century if we expect to remain a viable civilization in the coming decades.

##
To take action: First and foremost, join www.numbersusa.com and become one of nearly a million Americans making impact with pre-written faxes and phone calls to change immigration policies toward a stable future. Bi-partisan and highly effective!

Second, join www.thesocialcontract.com for up to date information via the Social Contract Quarterly. Exceptional publication to keep you informed.

www.fairus.org ; www.vdare.com ; www.alipac.us ; www.firecoalition.com ; www.cairco.org ; www.limitstogrowth.com ; www.capsweb.org ; www.populationmedia.org ; www.worldpopulationbalance.org ; LimitsToGrowth.org

America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans by Frosty Wooldridge. This book covers all the ramifications of adding 100 million people to the USA in the next 26 years by 2035. Call for a copy: 1 888 280 7715

Visit this site for a rendition of Colorado Governor Lamm’s speech: “How to Destroy America”

http://usawakeup.org/HowToDestroyAmerica.htm

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!


In Canada: Tim Murray,
Director Immigration Watch Canada www.immigrationwatch.org
Vice President Biodiversity First http://biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com/index.htm
Blog http://sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com

Watch the DVD movie: “Blind Spot”—Exceptional movie with top scientists candidly discussion what we face as a civilization if we continue on our hyper-population growth path. www.blindspotdoc.com
Watch it on line: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/blind_spot/

Please visit Annie Leonard at www.storyofstuff.com for a compelling and highly interesting 20 minute video concerning our high consumption, highly wasteful and unsustainable society. She educates and provides avenues for you to make a difference.

Visit this web site by Chris Martenson: http://www.chrismartenson.com/environmental_data

In Colorado: visit www.soprisfoundation.org for information how you can network with like-minded folks to create a more sustainable future for Colorado and other states.

View CNN’s “Planet in Peril” with Anderson Cooper and Lisa Ling:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/planet.in.peril/
Ghost of Thomas Paine—compelling video of common sense
http://www.lawatchdog.com/index.html#anchor_2296


BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA: D.C.: (202)224-2854 comment@whitehouse.gov
Books to read: “The Long Emergency” by James Howard Kunstler
“Peak Everything” by Richard Heinberg
“Too Many People” by Lindsey Grant


Become a member of “Frosty’s Press Agent Corps” whereby you volunteer a few hours to send out emails to top TV and radio hosts to offer top speakers on America’s overpopulation crisis driven by unending immigration. Email frostyw@juno.com and receive two informational letters showing you exactly what to do.

Roy Beck's "IMMIGRATION BY THE NUMBERS" is the single best educational appreciation of America's future if we allow ourselves to add another 100 million people. Just click on this site for the most sobering experience of your children's future.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4094926727128068265&q=roy+beck&hl=en

Roy Beck gives a graphic presentation of our fate if we continue to allow legal and illegal immigration to swamp this country. If you have children, you will be particular unnerved at their fate. I know Roy Beck personally and his integrity and knowledge stand at the top. Pass this web site 14 minute video far and wide across America to educate everyone you know. We either stop this human tsunami or the future of this country will be much like Rome's. We must, as a nation and a civilization, move to secure our country from this massive, unrelenting population overload from a line that never ends. This will be the most compelling 14 minute video of your life.

Once you see it, go to my web site for action items www.frostywooldridge.com and join www.numbersusa.com to become a weekly faxer of pre written letters and join the phone calling teams.

Bob Woodruff of ABC asked input from all citizens concerning the future of our planet. Go to www.earth2100.tv for a sobering reality check as to what we face and to what I have been writing about for the past 20 years. Our ‘window’ to change to a balanced population and non-polluting energy diminishes every day we listen to irresponsible media and thus ignore the blatant symptoms manifesting all over America and the planet.

From: Frosty Wooldridge

This three minute interview with Adam Schrager on “Your Show” May 4, 2008, NBC Channel 9 News, addresses the ramifications of adding 120 million people to USA in 35 years and six million people to Colorado as to water shortages, air pollution, loss of farmland, energy costs and degradation of quality of life. In the interview, Frosty Wooldridge explains the ramifications of adding 120 million people to the USA in 35 years. He advances new concepts such as a “Colorado Carrying Capacity Policy”; “Colorado Environmental Impact Policy”; “Colorado Water Usage Policy”; “Colorado Sustainable Population Policy”. Nationally, the USA needs a "National Sustainable Population Policy" to determine the carrying capacity of this nation for the short and long term. Wooldridge is available for interviews on radio and TV having interviewed on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX.

Go to: www.frostywooldridge.com and click on “Audio/Video” tab

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.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

What Americans Think About the Population Debate

Part 1: Raging controversy
By Frosty Wooldridge

At long last, the Economist Magazine offered a debate on its website that garnered thousands of responses. John Seager, president of Population Connection (formerly ZPG), promotes population stabilization and long term decline. He proposes that Americans live within the carrying capacity of the land. Opposing him, MICHAEL LIND, Policy Director, Economic Growth/Next Social Contract Program, New America Foundation, promotes population expansion. Lind encourages unlimited expansion of human population.

Link: http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/151?source=most_commented

Readers from around the world weighed in with their ideas on what our civilization faces:

Emilio V. said, “Population growth is at the heart of most of the major problems we face regarding our continuance as a species. Our insistence on economic models of growth and population expansion will continue to hasten the magnitude of the problems of resource scarcity, carrying capacity, environmental degradation, and the effects of these problems on politics and government control of populations. Alleviating the pressures caused by overpopulation would result in benefits to the majority of the world's people, probably not at first as the older generations will demographically outweigh younger ones, but if growth can be managed (a big IF) benefits would be had for all in the long run. This is the elephant in the room.”

William H. said, “Your article in opednews today is right on point. Thanks for writing. Inasmuch as it speaks the truth, it brings to mind a few historic comments about the truth, namely Shopenhauer's three stages and Churchill's pithy comments. My view, coming from a medical, and by that biologic and evolutionary, background, is that, while people like you articulate the looming tragedy and misery that will surely ensue, the human race, bound to obey its DNA, will without a pause, reproduces itself into a pollution and starvation-driven near-extinction. The charitable and "good" among us will only exacerbate that course by struggling with the endpoints (starvation, pollution and disease) while remaining emotionally incapable of focusing on the root cause, overpopulation. Thank you for your effort. I will keep your website in mind in the event that some venue among my colleagues or other local organizations might present an opportunity to have you present your information. I hope I am wrong, but everything I see from behavior and history says that I am not.”

Onechild wrote, “I am an only child and the father of an only child. I want the best for by daughter and al life on earth. Every added child compromises the quality of life, and perhaps even the opportunity for existence for all species. We will be running out of essential resources just as our population peaks. Nine billion people struggling to "live off of the land", will leave little in their wake. The ONLY solution is to humanely reduce our population down to the 1.5 to two billion that can truly be sustained. The longer we let the population overshoot go on, the faster and farther all life will crash.”

Albert K. said, “Wow, if there were ever a topic that needs wider discussion, it's that of population growth. Do world leaders and local leaders avoid talking about this issue because it's not important? No, they refuse to discuss it because it is can become personal - it's about peoples' personal choices and how they add up. So, what we need to do is include this in every discussion about climate change. And every discussion about pollution. And every discussion about the price of commodities, hunger, species loss, etc. The issue of the world's population is so under-represented, it's slightly crazy. We all need to hear thoughts on this issue - and not just on some obscure on-line forum, but right on the front page of your magazine. Please don't bury this story, help get it out there.”

Ms. S. wrote, “By battening off the world's resources, and congratulating and justifying ourselves with religious texts we composed ourselves, we rapacious apes have obscenely bloated our numbers. Now we're hitting the resources wall. I can't help but think that famine, war, and plague will decimate our populations before the century has ended. I just feel sorry for the other animals and for the wild flowers we have taken, and will take, down with us.”

Arm R. said, “IgnorantAmerican wrote "If we can come up with a plausible way to colonize space, overpopulation will become a thing of the past." IF we had the energy available, and invented technologies that at this point are deemed impossible (or at least very difficult), and if Star Trek was real, then we might be able to do that. I'm not willing to gamble the future of my children on some cultist technological fantasy, though.”

Common S. wrote, “It is normal that every Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, African etc wishes to eventually get the same level of comfort as is available in the richest countries of the world. But the earth resources are not sufficient for nine billion people, or seven billion living in such a way, even we come up with clever solutions like renewable energy and eco-design, for part of our consumption. Since we cannot go backwards, the only way is to go forwards in our control of nature by learning to control the ultimate thing, the number of humans on earth, before nature fights back, and either starves us through food depletion connected to climate change or reduces our numbers through one or more HxNx virus, like any ordinary animal species.”

You might join this debate by your letters to the editor in your local newspapers. You may spur NPR to investigate. You might encourage your local PBS station to run a series. You might email your local radio talk show to invite population/environmental guests onto their shows.

Today, the United States grows as the third fastest country in the world on its way to adding 100 million people via immigration by 2035 and 138 million by 2050. Our civilization lacks the water, energy and resources to maintain our current standard of living. Such a huge population growth guarantees loss of standard of living, quality of life, degraded environment, massive species extinction rates, water scarcity, energy crises and a Pandora’s Box of multiple consequences.

You may ask the question: “Do I want my children living in this country with another added 100 million people.”

I suggest the answer is a loud and definite, “NO!”
##
To take action: First and foremost, join www.numbersusa.com and become one of nearly a million Americans making impact with pre-written faxes and phone calls to change immigration policies toward a stable future. Bi-partisan and highly effective!

Second, join www.thesocialcontract.com for up to date information via the Social Contract Quarterly. Exceptional publication to keep you informed.

www.fairus.org ; www.vdare.com ; www.alipac.us ; www.firecoalition.com ; www.cairco.org ; www.limitstogrowth.com ; www.capsweb.org ; www.populationmedia.org ; www.worldpopulationbalance.org ; LimitsToGrowth.org

America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans by Frosty Wooldridge. This book covers all the ramifications of adding 100 million people to the USA in the next 26 years by 2035.

Visit this site for a rendition of Colorado Governor Lamm’s speech: “How to Destroy America”

http://usawakeup.org/HowToDestroyAmerica.htm

Must see DVD: “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!


In Canada: Tim Murray,
Director Immigration Watch Canada www.immigrationwatch.org
Vice President Biodiversity First http://biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com/index.htm
Blog http://sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com

Watch the DVD movie: “Blind Spot”—Exceptional movie with top scientists candidly discussion what we face as a civilization if we continue on our hyper-population growth path. www.blindspotdoc.com

Please visit Annie Leonard at www.storyofstuff.com for a compelling and highly interesting 20 minute video concerning our high consumption, highly wasteful and unsustainable society. She educates and provides avenues for you to make a difference.

Visit this web site by Chris Martenson: http://www.chrismartenson.com/environmental_data

In Colorado: visit www.soprisfoundation.org for information how you can network with like-minded folks to create a more sustainable future for Colorado and other states.

View CNN’s “Planet in Peril” with Anderson Cooper and Lisa Ling:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/planet.in.peril/
Ghost of Thomas Paine—compelling video of common sense
http://www.lawatchdog.com/index.html#anchor_2296


BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA: D.C.: (202)224-2854 comment@whitehouse.gov
Books to read: “The Long Emergency” by James Howard Kunstler
“Peak Everything” by Richard Heinberg
“Too Many People” by Lindsey Grant


Become a member of “Frosty’s Press Agent Corps” whereby you volunteer a few hours to send out emails to top TV and radio hosts to offer top speakers on America’s overpopulation crisis driven by unending immigration. Email frostyw@juno.com and receive two informational letters showing you exactly what to do.

Roy Beck's "IMMIGRATION BY THE NUMBERS" is the single best educational appreciation of America's future if we allow ourselves to add another 100 million people. Just click on this site for the most sobering experience of your children's future.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4094926727128068265&q=roy+beck&hl=en

Roy Beck gives a graphic presentation of our fate if we continue to allow legal and illegal immigration to swamp this country. If you have children, you will be particular unnerved at their fate. I know Roy Beck personally and his integrity and knowledge stand at the top. Pass this web site 14 minute video far and wide across America to educate everyone you know. We either stop this human tsunami or the future of this country will be much like Rome's. We must, as a nation and a civilization, move to secure our country from this massive, unrelenting population overload from a line that never ends. This will be the most compelling 14 minute video of your life.

Once you see it, go to my web site for action items www.frostywooldridge.com and join www.numbersusa.com to become a weekly faxer of pre written letters and join the phone calling teams.

Bob Woodruff of ABC asked input from all citizens concerning the future of our planet. Go to www.earth2100.tv for a sobering reality check as to what we face and to what I have been writing about for the past 20 years. Our ‘window’ to change to a balanced population and non-polluting energy diminishes every day we listen to irresponsible media and thus ignore the blatant symptoms manifesting all over America and the planet.

From: Frosty Wooldridge

This three minute interview with Adam Schrager on “Your Show” May 4, 2008, NBC Channel 9 News, addresses the ramifications of adding 120 million people to USA in 35 years and six million people to Colorado as to water shortages, air pollution, loss of farmland, energy costs and degradation of quality of life. In the interview, Frosty Wooldridge explains the ramifications of adding 120 million people to the USA in 35 years. He advances new concepts such as a “Colorado Carrying Capacity Policy”; “Colorado Environmental Impact Policy”; “Colorado Water Usage Policy”; “Colorado Sustainable Population Policy”. Nationally, the USA needs a "National Sustainable Population Policy" to determine the carrying capacity of this nation for the short and long term. Wooldridge is available for interviews on radio and TV having interviewed on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX.

Go to: www.frostywooldridge.com and click on “Audio/Video” tab

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