Thread: Help for Frosty

Dear friends and press corps:
A crack just appeared in the March 1, 2010 High Country News. They reported on Bromwell Ault’s and my urgings to address overpopulation. You may write a response to the editors with the contact numbers below. Additionally, you may write your own or use my letter to them for a template. The more responses they receive, the more they will respond to the population issue. If you read of any papers or programs on population, I would love to hear from you so we can repeat the responses in mass. Thanks, Frosty
Please read the piece, it’s short, and then, my letter and the responses can be found at the end of this article.

It's the population, stupid?
Op-Ed - From the March 01, 2010 issue of High Country News by Jonathan Thompson



On my desk sits a stack of manila folders. Each one contains an essay that argues, essentially, that all of our problems -- especially the environmental ones -- are caused by one thing: overpopulation. We get a lot of this sort of thing. Most of it comes from a guy named Frosty Wooldridge, who has beaten the population drum for years. But we also get letters from other folks, usually after a story about water or sprawl or immigration, emphatically demanding that we wake up and address the root of all evils: There are just too many people.

In this issue's powerful cover essay, Chuck Bowden finally does it for us. It's only a sentence or two, but it feels like a punch in the gut. Not that you populistas out there should get too excited: We're not about to become the Overpopulated Country News.

On one level, of course, the populistas are correct. An increased number of people will generally increase the strain on the environment. In one of the essays on my desk, Bromwell Ault of the Center for Public Conscience writes: "Population is a process of silent and powerful geometric increase," which entails "that for every added unit of population we lose one acre of land to the various development projects such growth requires." In other words: For every person added to a place, there is a directly proportional impact to the environment.

The appeal of this equation lies in its simplicity. As Wooldridge dramatically writes: "It is possessed of that same beautiful, and sometimes deadly, precision that we find in E=mc2 and a2+b2=c2." Yet that same simplicity is the equation's underlying flaw, for it leaves out the most important variable: consumption. Indeed, a more pertinent equation would be this: The more we consume, the greater the environmental impact.

And, contrary to what some might believe, consumption is not directly proportional to population. An average family of four in Mexico City, for example, lives on a much smaller piece of land and consumes considerably less than a similar family in a McMansion on the exurban fringe of Phoenix, complete with green lawn, three cars, big-screen television and a high-calorie fast-food diet. Each "population unit's" consumption level is determined by its own set of variables -- societal and individual values, culture, land-use regulations, wealth, economic systems, etc.

We will not curtail our consumption by stopping the flow of people from Mexico to the United States. In an age when Colorado shoppers buy apples from New Zealand and a single hamburger patty is amalgamated from cow parts grown and processed in several different countries, it should be obvious that keeping people on one side of a political boundary does not confine their impacts to that side of the line. Not that we've ever been able to keep people on one side of a border -- as Bowden points out, neither a border wall nor a police state can stifle the migratory urge.

It is indeed frightening to watch the national and global population clock race forward. But that is not the only or even the most important issue at hand. More important than how many of us there are is how we choose to live, both as individuals and collectively. And that requires acts of conscience and human innovation and will, none of which can be contained by a simple equation.



Betsy Marston, editor, betsym@hcn.org

Paul Larmer, publisher, plarmer@hcn.org

Ray Ring, editor, rayring@hcn.org

jonathan@hcn.org , editor

editor@hcn.org





Dear Jonathan, Paul, Ray and Chuck Bowden, and the entire staff at HCN:

A huge thank you for leading off this issue of High Country News with the population dilemma, and a HUGE thank you to Chuck Bowden with his 'earth shaking' mentioning of our impending reality: "The projections say 450 million Americans by 2050, a billion or so by 2100, and 9.3 billion humans on this planet in the next 40 years (my correction)." Bowden stated emphatically what most media ignore and avoid at all costs. We can no longer afford that frivolity.

Fellow journalists and editors, this is not the 'party' our kids will thank us for in the next 40 years. Now you're getting an idea as to what I have been talking and urging you to address for the past 10 years. It's not like we've got a couple of decades to 'wait' because another two decades means another 65 to 70 million people and three to five million in Colorado.

Again, I'm sending each of you the chapters from my evolving series: Overpopulation in 21st Century America. Use it, copy it, learn from it and spread it to all your contacts. Let's create a firestorm of debate and discussion. We don't want Chuck's ominous figures of 450 million humans to manifest in the USA in 40 years! And, if you remain silent as is the media's propensity in this country--it will!

Again, I urge Johnathan and Paul to consider writing a "overpopulation column" either by yours truly or by one of the staff that keeps the fire burning and keeps readers alert to what their children face. And, to what they can do to stop this kind of future. www.numbersusa.com ; www.populationmedia.org ; www.thesocialcontract.com ;
www.worldpopulationbalance.org and many other websites. As I have said before, it is impossible to address or solve the many environmental problems without working toward a stable population.

Each of us carries the power of our pens to change the course of history by writing, with our voices by our speaking and creating the discussion on overpopulation in America. Each of you enjoys the passions of Susan B. Anthony, or Gandhi, or ML King or Barbara Jordan, John Muir--and they created a better world--and so can you.

Blessings and write on,

Frosty Wooldridge

frostyw@juno.com

Golden, CO