Save the Earth

The population of Earth is now more than 6 billion people. That may not sound like that many people, but when you look at it from the perspective of consumption of the planet’s limited resources it is five times more people than it can sustain.

According to the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University, at current consumption levels we would need five more planets just like the planet Earth to sustain this level of population, but we only have this one.

That is the bad news, but the really terrible news is that the population is projected to grow to 12 billion over the next 50 years. When you combine this overpopulation problem with the problems we are going to experience from global warming the outlook for all humanity is bleak.

During the past 50 years we have seen skyrocketing levels of CO2 in our atmosphere, a thinning ozone layer, a 50 percent decline in the rain forest, rising atmospheric temperatures and fewer good quality fresh water supplies. When the population of the Earth hits 12 billion there will not be enough water or food to keep all these people alive and healthy.

The bottom line is that overpopulation and over-consumption are depleting the Earth's finite resources and causing the atmosphere of our planet to heat up. A good analogy to this situation is a person who eats too much and too many of the wrong types of food until they are fat and sick with the numerous illnesses that afflict obese people. Then they get sick and die before they have lived the full potential of their lives. The Earth has become obese with too many people and is now sick from this overpopulation.

We must stop the growth of the human population. We can do these things by offering family planning services, birth control, sterilization, sex education and environmental education.

It's time to stop being passive and speak up about the true cause of global warming and pollution.

Marti Bradley

Knik