- "The raging monster upon the land is population
growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct.
To say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to people,
but to poor ideology and land-use management is sophistic." Harvard
scholar and biologist E.O. Wilson
-
- At the incredible rate of adding 1 billion humans every
13 years to this planet and reaching close to 10 billion by mid century,
Mother Nature will not tolerate such devastation to her eco-systems as
being wrought by 21st century humans.
-
- By burning 84 million barrels of oil daily around the
planet, humans do not realize their impact on the ecological balance of
this remarkable sphere somewhere in deep space.
-
- In a story by The Age, 2/21/11, we may find ourselves
in hot water beyond our solving it.
-
- "A growing, more affluent population competing for
ever scarcer resources could make for an "unrecognizable" world
by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday,"
reported The Age. "The United Nations has predicted the global population
will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050,
"with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly
Africa and South Asia," said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population
Council."
-
- "To feed all those mouths, "we will need to
produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000,"
said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)."
-
- "By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is
recognizable" if current trends continue, Clay said.
-
- "Somehow, we have come to think the whole purpose
of the economy is to grow, yet growth is not a goal or purpose. The pursuit
of endless growth is suicidal." ~ David Suzuki
-
- "The swelling population will exacerbate problems,
such as resource depletion, said John Casterline, director of the Initiative
in Population Research at Ohio State University," reported The Age.
"But incomes are also expected to rise over the next 40 years -- tripling
globally and quintupling in developing nations -- and add more strain to
global food supplies.
-
- "People tend to move up the food chain as their
incomes rise, consuming more meat than they might have when they made less
money, the experts said.
-
- "It takes around seven pounds (3.4 kilograms) of
grain to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain
to produce a pound of cheese or eggs, experts told AFP.
-
- "More people, more money, more consumption, but
the same planet," Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments
to start making changes now to how food is produced.
-
- "Growth for the sake of yet more growth is a bankrupt
and eventually lethal idea. CASSE is the David fighting the Goliath of
endless expansion, and we know how that one turned out." ~ David Orr
-
- "Population experts, meanwhile, called for more
funding for family planning programs to help control the growth in the
number of humans, especially in developing nations.
-
- "For 20 years, there's been very little investment
in family planning, but there's a return of interest now, partly because
of the environmental factors like global warming and food prices,"
said Bongaarts.
-
- "We want to minimize population growth, and the
only viable way to do that is through more effective family planning,"
said Casterline.
-
- One thing remains certain. We cannot continue on the
current path of human population growth. It portends horrific human die-off
in the 21stcentury.
-
- Dr. Paul Ehrlich said, "All causes are lost causes
without limiting human population."
-
- "Most Western elites continue urging the wealthy
West not to stem the migrant tide [that adds 80 million net gain annually
to the planet], but to absorb our global brothers and sisters until their
horrid ordeal has been endured and shared by all-ten billion humans packed
onto an ecologically devastated planet." Dr. Otis Graham, Unguarded
Gates
-
- The green revolution was instigated as a result of the
efforts of Norman Borlaug, who, while accepting the Nobel peace
prize in 1970, said: "The green revolution has won a temporary success
in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing
space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food
for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power
of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the
green revolution will be ephemeral only."
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