Thread: POPULATION: Unchecked growth: the Suicide Bomb

From the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram (Star-Telegram.com)
Editorials & Opinions
Tuesday, Mar 17, 2009
Posted on Mon, Mar. 16, 2009

POPULATION: Unchecked growth: the suicide bomb

By JIMMY A. DeFOOR
Special to the Star-Telegram

We are weapons of mass destruction. We are the suicide bombers hiding sure destruction under our clothing.

Collectively, we are the major terrorist threat that will destroy the American dream of an ever-better tomorrow even if we manage to not destroy the nation itself. The 60 million residents we will add during the next 21 years will certainly damage our quality of life and that damage will be lengthy and extensive.

President Obama must recognize this and make the reduction of our population growth as significant a national priority as reducing our carbon emissions. In fact, reducing U.S. carbon emissions long-term necessitates that we control our population. No matter how much we slash the carbon emissions of each resident, we will always return to higher total emissions unless we control population.

Curtailing population growth also is as important to long-term U.S. fiscal health as fixing the economy and reforming healthcare. Our 60 million new residents will increase the population by 20 percent. Half will come from immigration. These new children and adults will demand at least a 20 percent increase in government services at all levels: trash dumps, water reservoirs, prisons, courts, police, schools, hospitals and highways.

Furthermore, the additional expense won’t be evenly distributed.

More than 38 million of the new residents will be concentrated in six states: California, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. Texas will house 9 million by itself.

Where will Texas put them?

Will 3 million go along the coast so that they will be exposed to the hurricanes that enter the Gulf? Will another 2 million reside in Austin and San Antonio, where water shortages are now a way of life? Will we put another 3 million in Dallas and Fort Worth, where roads are already overloaded and commute times are often an hour? Will the final million live near Lubbock and Amarillo and convert thousands of acres of our best cropland to housing and streets?

And what of the impact of population growth elsewhere?

California, Arizona, Florida and Georgia are expected to add more than 26 million people. Florida’s 10 million will be exposed to frequent tropical storms across its width of 150 miles. California, Arizona and Georgia already lack sufficient water for their cities and their farms. Where will they get the water needed for their 16 million additional people?

We must take action now to restrict our population growth.

We must reduce total immigration into the United States from its current 1 million to 1.5 million people per year to no more than 500,000 per year, which will be 200,000 more people than our annual emigration. Given that almost half of our current immigration is illegal, we must adjust annual legal immigration to compensate for the illegal totals that are allowed each year. This means that if we allow 300,000 illegal residents each year, we can only allow 200,000 legal residents across all categories: refugee, family member and employee-sponsored.

We must strengthen efforts to limit illegal immigration by finding employers who hire undocumented workers and levying increasing fines for repeat offenses.

We must start a national campaign to encourage families to limit their number of children to two.

We must remove the tax subsidies for any children born after their first two siblings.

If we initiate these steps, we can lower U.S. population growth over the next 21 years from 60 million to only 20 million.

Last, we must begin to dedicate U.S. foreign aid primarily to those countries that will take action to reduce their birth rates. Already, nearly 1 billion people of the world’s 6.7 billion inhabitants are chronically hungry most days. Given that food shortages will only expand as the world’s population grows to 8.4 billion in 2030, we won’t have enough food to send to those countries that will not work hard to control their populations.

There are only so many seats on the lifeboat named Earth. We must reserve them for the people who will row safely together.

Jimmy A. DeFoor of Fort Worth is a database program manager for a major credit card company. jimmydefoor@gmail.com

http://www.star-telegram.com/opinions/s ... 59218.html

You must register to leave comments at the source.

We must start a national campaign to encourage families to limit their number of children to two.

Better run the campaign in Spanish, English speaking Americans already average less than 2 children.

One way to solve this problem is through taxation and other incentives to discourage having children. Here in the US, over population is not as big a problem when you think in terms of the amount of land we have (vast majority of our lan is highly rural). The problem is made obvious only when we look at the coastal regions (West and East Coast) because that's were most of the population concentrates at.

Originally Posted by LatinoMan

One way to solve this problem is through taxation and other incentives to discourage having children. Here in the US, over population is not as big a problem when you think in terms of the amount of land we have (vast majority of our lan is highly rural). The problem is made obvious only when we look at the coastal regions (West and East Coast) because that's were most of the population concentrates at.

The population is on the coasts because that's where the majority of the resources and fair weather is. Resources are not only on land, the ocean provides many resources and also bulk international transportation.

I agree 100% with removing financial incentives to have more than 2 children.
for example right now California provides public benefits for eight children.

Welcome, LatinoMan! And have to agree that much of our land is rural, but that is also the American breakbasket we and a large part of the world rely on.
Taxation of huge families would be good, but may I recommend also that any kind of public aid be cut off to any parent after child number two. While child No. 1 and No.2 can have their food stamps and rent assistance, the rest of the anchor progeny will become a hardship on the entire family. It may make some folks, especially the illegals, think twice about having more kids than our country can support. And I would be happy to have my tax dollars go to translate such a regulation into every language in the world.

welcome latinoman

Over population is a very large problem in this country. Not to mention in the rest of the world. Sure there is land and there is land a plenty. But you are overlooking the resources to sustain people

But to settle land you need a lot of resources. Consumption of water,lumber,oils and gas,natural gas,electricity. Then you consume other items as appliances and furniture,plastics,glass,paper,all types building materials which then eventually leads to waste. So now you have to have dump sites and or recycle areas. Where are those going to go because most people do not want anything to do with or live around those types of sites.

Let us not forget to sustain larger and larger populations you need foods! Now you need more land to grow more food. And only certain amounts of land are appropriate for some food growth. Let us not forget the cars and trucks to get around in your new town or city and the vehicles needed to deliver the merchandise. Now you grow a problem with the pollution of the air you breath.

As you see population has to have all the basics for sustaining these people. Of course if you would like to live in a third world type environment and setting. Then I guess you would not see over population as a problem!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09 ... index.html
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/4620/population.htm
And of course there are some that still think it is no problem for over population. They feel technology will follow us and new resources will replace old resources

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000972.php

Originally Posted by uniteasone

welcome latinoman

Over population is a very large problem in this country. Not to mention in the rest of the world. Sure there is land and there is land a plenty. But you are overlooking the resources to sustain people

But to settle land you need a lot of resources. Consumption of water,lumber,oils and gas,natural gas,electricity. Then you consume other items as appliances and furniture,plastics,glass,paper,all types building materials which then eventually leads to waste. So now you have to have dump sites and or recycle areas. Where are those going to go because most people do not want anything to do with or live around those types of sites.

Let us not forget to sustain larger and larger populations you need foods! Now you need more land to grow more food. And only certain amounts of land are appropriate for some food growth. Let us not forget the cars and trucks to get around in your new town or city and the vehicles needed to deliver the merchandise. Now you grow a problem with the pollution of the air you breath.

As you see population has to have all the basics for sustaining these people. Of course if you would like to live in a third world type environment and setting. Then I guess you would not see over population as a problem!

Hey uniteasone. Thanks for the welcome.

One over populated city that comes to mind is Tokyo with over 12 million residents. Does it look like a third world city? From what I've seen, it's packed but it doesn't necessarily look like third world city to me. I've always wanted to go vacation there. They're using technology to help alleviate and offset the effects of dense population. We could do the same in our top 20 populated metropolitan regions if the population in those areas ever reached Tokyo levels. I certainly don't want it to reach those levels, but that's one way to solve it, through technology. As for resources, again, technology is key to finding a solution for that. For example, one day desalination plants could become efficient enough (no carbon footprint) in filtering ocean water that it would become the main source of water for most of this country's residents. Bio engineering could help produce special crops that require less water, require less land and grow faster. Technology could help solve many of these problems.

as I said there is a report to argue against over population
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000972.php

but I do not agree with all they say either. And as you mentioned Tokyo. Have you seen what those people live in? Apartments about the size of a large closet! There is no land so to speak and that is why a lot of the Japanese come to America and/or buy land here. Their kind of living may not be third world as far as conditions but you still have a huge population and over crowding. Still a great strain on resources!

LatinoMan wrote:

One way to solve this problem is through taxation and other incentives to discourage having children.

My preference is to secure our borders, enforce immigration laws, and reduce legal immigration. From what I understand the birth rate in the United States is at or near replacement levels. Personally, I think 305 million is enough.

IMO, we don't need to discourage citizens not to have children, however, we do need to make sure those having them are here legally.