Marilyn Hempel
"Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do."
-Goethe
In the last three decades, population stabilization and environmental protection emerged as two of the most pressing challenges facing nations and their peoples. Government leaders endorsed no fewer than 14 global treaties and action plans to address these challenges. The result is a rich body of policies and plans for reducing population growth and promoting sustainability.
This issue of the Pop!ulation Press looks at what has been accomplished, both nationally and internationally. Are we moving in the direction of sustainability? Statistics don't tell the whole story, but they do provide important indicators of change.
A key stumbling block to living more sustainably is the tendency to think of our communities and nations as islands. A seemingly endless ocean of resources lies at the American shoreline. We "borrow" these resources so successfully from others that we will not soon run out of anything. We can just keep importing it.
That's why it is appropriate to look at the hidden impacts of population growth and consumption by computing our ecological footprint (hint: your individual footprint is far larger than the size of your house). The astounding results prove that we live way beyond the ability of our land and water to support us. By comparing footprints, we can begin to see population issues in terms of EQUITY as well as LIMITS.
Americans traditionally care about equity issues. Is it fair to take land and water and other resources from other people, from our grandchildren, from non-human living beings with whom we share this planet, thereby jeopardizing their ability to live healthy lives-or even to survive?
Two contemporary issues that bring together concerns about limits, equity, and quality of life are urban sprawl and congestion. Everyone can relate to sprawl and congestion. No one likes them; most Americans can see them. These are fundamentally population problems.
Reasonable people can disagree about how best to solve these problems. Whatever solutions people offer or support, the trade-offs are clear: population growth is driving increased sprawl and congestion. We are losing our farmland, open space and wilderness. As fast as we have grown in population over the last 100 years, sprawl and congestion have grown even faster. If numbers of people keep growing, we can logically expect more crowding and haphazard development. Our lifestyles suffer. Our health suffers. Our children suffer. Our sense of trust and safety suffers. Wildlife suffers and ultimately disappears.
BUT it doesn't have to be this way. We can-and do-make choices and accept trade-offs. We can continue to add people and buildings and live much more densely. We can appropriate others' food, water and energy as we currently do. OR we can recognize that in a world in which the amount of land and clean water does not grow, on a planet that does not expand, we would be happier, healthier and freer if our human numbers stop growing.
As a human species, problem solving is one of our most useful and remarkable abilities. Isn't it time that we put that ability to use in confronting the most basic problem that threatens the quality of our existence, the problem of a population that has outgrown the resources of the planet that is its home? If we continue to ignore danger signs, the danger will not disappear. Instead, those least able to complain and adapt will continue to pay the highest price, and those most able to implement positive changes will continue to choose apathy, another way of saying they choose disaster for others first and ultimately tragedy for their descendants, while recognizing their folly only after the impacts become unavoidable and it is too late to salvage the fragile blue sphere on which we live.
If we choose not to grow, there are reasonable, equitable, and voluntary ways to implement that choice, and for us all to benefit from it.
The Pop!ulation Press welcomes your comments:
