XPost: alt.politics.greens, rec.backcountry, talk.environment   
   XPost: misc.transport.trucking, rec.animals.wildlife   
   From: norton@cybertrails.com   
      
   "Enough Already"  wrote in message   
   news:1137395334.750217.188460@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...   
   > Recent news says the U.S. population will reach 300 million sometime in   
   > October 2006. This continues the mindless modern tradition of more   
   > traffic jams, housing tracts, noise, malls, boulevards, diverted rivers   
   > and wilderness yielding to the saw and drill. It should not be welcomed   
   > as progress. 200 million was plenty back in 1967. Since the population   
   > must peak someday, it may as well have peaked yesterday. There is no   
   > intrinsic value in more crowding.   
   >   
   > Our economy clamors for population growth to keep the GNP rising, but   
   > nobody can explain why that "must" be. Economists try but they get into   
   > an endless loop of demand driving supply (people make money off it, but   
   > they've always made money). We've been confusing gross consumption with   
   > per-capita prosperity for a long time. Mathematics says you can't   
   > portion a pie in endlessly bigger slices while feeding more people in a   
   > finite world. Personal and government debt is the price we pay for that   
   > illusion. The drawing down of finite oil and water supplies is the   
   > "bank" covering most of that debt.   
   >   
   > I may be around when we hit 400 million in under 40 years, and the   
   > number could easily surpass 500 million by 2100. I can picture homes   
   > and roads creeping into every biome except the driest deserts, wettest   
   > swamps, highest alpine meadows or coldest tundra. I can see Nevada, a   
   > rare refuge for solitude, being opened up with extravagant water   
   > schemes from the north and west. Watch out, Lake Tahoe. At some point   
   > they may ruin Great Salt Lake with desalination plants or build extreme   
   > canals from the Great Lakes, transferring the population burden from   
   > one place to another. Aquifers nationwide have been shrinking ever   
   > since pumps were invented.   
   >   
   > More money will be made by growth-addicted developers and the land will   
   > keep losing its character. The construction industry can count on a   
   > solid century of mindless digging, damming, building and paving to   
   > satisfy all those people.  The needs of other species will continue to   
   > suffer as pressure mounts on their habitat. Depending on how many   
   > "conserv"atives the ignorant half of the populace elects, development   
   > could crowd the edges of many national and state parks. The fight for   
   > ANWR will just be one of many. Alaskans think they need to consume more   
   > wilderness to support their economy, but they should question that   
   > whole parasitic scheme.   
   >   
   > I don't even want to think about the rest of the world as the growth   
   > parade tramples everything. We may see the extinction of several major   
   > species in Africa and Asia via bush-meat and exotic foods. The world's   
   > fisheries will continue to decline with more mouths to feed. Trying to   
   > reducing CO2 emissions with  more people emitting is a joke. How about   
   > Kyoto-2 with a contraception clause? Instead of futilely "managing"   
   > growth, let's make birth-rates match death-rates, like nature intended.   
   >   
   > All of you who equate the endless tide of people with progress, please   
   > volunteer to live in dense urban areas and stay close to home on   
   > vacations. Save the vanishing open spaces for those who truly   
   > appreciate nature; and that doesn't mean building trophy homes to covet   
   > and simultaneously spoil the last vistas. If you consider yourself an   
   > environmentalist but you're fine with unbridled immigration, don't   
   > complain as your battles get ever more futile. If you think PBS nature   
   > documentaries are sobering today, just wait.   
   >   
   > E.A.   
   >   
   > http://enough_already.tripod.com/   
   > If any other species behaved like Man we'd call it a plague.   
   >   
   > "More people, more scars upon the land." (John Denver)   
      
   Environmental groups maintain their head-in-the-sand posture ignoring the   
   fact that America's population growth is mostly coming from immigration,   
   legal and illegal. For shame.   
   >   
   Hank   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)