When people over populate resources will be in short demand. Currently we are having people longage and power shortage. Are you prepared to live in this country as it becomes a third world country. I don't hate people because they are another color. I think all people deserve a chance to live decent because I have struggled living in this world and so have my people. However, on the other hand we are faced with serious problems. We can't continue to overpopulate at the rate we are currently going. This time has come for Americans to say hey we need our electricity, our gas, and our jobs. I have taken the pleasure of providing you with the following article as it relates to the Electricity problems in California.

http://www.capsweb.org/newsroom/media_c ... power.html

Too Many People, Too Little Power
People Longage, Power Shortage

By Ric Oberlink, San Diego Union-Tribune
January 17, 2001

There are two components to California's energy crisis -- the high price of energy and an insufficient supply of energy. The former has been dominating the recent news, but it is the latter that led to brownouts last summer and threats of more to come. Moreover, inadequate supplies are a cause of higher prices.

You may have read that California's power shortage is due to the increased demand of its booming economy and what one news article called "Silicon Valley's voracious appetite for electrical power." That is wrong. You may believe that Californians -- with all their new computers, big-screen televisions, and gourmet appliances -- are using more electricity. That, too, is wrong.

Per capita consumption of electricity in California has been flat for 25 years. In 1979, per capita consumption of electricity in the state was 7,292 kilowatt-hours. In 1999, it was down to 6,952 kilowatt-hours. Twenty years of more gadgets, new toys, and bigger appliances yielded a 5 percent decrease in per capita consumption of electricity.

So California should be in Fat City regarding energy supplies. We shouldn't need any new power plants. We should be able to shut down the dirtiest of the old plants because we're using less electricity. However, during that same 20 years the state's population grew from 23 million to 33 million -- a 43 percent increase!

California doesn't have a power shortage. It has a population "longage." The power "shortages" -- like traffic congestion, like sprawl, like the depletion of habitat for wildlife, like virtually every environmental problem in California -- are due primarily to population growth.

Last year California grew by 571,000 people and now has a population in excess of 34 million. Its annual growth rate of 1.7 percent exceeds that of Bangladesh. We think of Europe as the crowded Old World and think of America, especially the West, as the land of wide-open spaces. Yet the population density of California already exceeds that of Europe and in 30 years it will exceed that of present-day China. Clearly, it's time to say enough is enough.

Many people mistakenly think California's population has grown because people move here from other states. In fact, during the last decade more people moved from California to other states than migrated from other states to California.

Most of the population growth in the United Sates is due to immigration. The baby boom of the '50s and '60s has been supplanted by the "immigration boom" of the '80s and '90s that continues today. According to the Census Bureau, two-thirds of future population growth will come from immigration. The proportion for California is higher still. California's immigrant population is almost 9 million -- a number exceeding the combined population of Norway and Costa Rica.

Previously, we worried about energy shortfalls only in summer when air conditioners are humming. Now we have experienced Stage 3 power alerts -- the highest level of energy emergency -- in December and January, most recently yesterday. Yet politicians and media have failed to identify the cause. People are not using more electricity. There are simply more people.

After brownouts in July, Pacific Gas and Electric proposed placing a floating power plant on San Francisco Bay. Environmentalists threatened to board and disrupt the floating power plant should it sail through the Golden Gate. The idea was scrapped.

Given the obvious connection between population growth and the demand for new power plants, you might think that environmental groups would emphasize stopping the state's population growth. They don't. Oppose new power plant construction? Sure. Oppose the population growth that causes it? Too controversial.

Fortunately, not all environmentalists are so timid. The late David Brower resigned last year as a director of the Sierra Club, in large part, because of its failure to take a responsible position on population growth and immigration. "Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem," Brower said. "It has to be addressed."

In his State of the State address, Gov. Gray Davis offered bold rhetoric, but nothing of substance to address California's energy problems -- long-term or short-term. He certainly didn't mention population growth in California. Let us hope that other leaders have more courage.

Oberlink is an environmental consultant for Californians for Population Stabilization.


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Copyright 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.