John Feeney and BBC's The Green Room on Overpopulation

Environmental writer John Feeney, PhD, advises that we should stop environmental destruction via the root of the problem: "We must end world population growth, then reduce population size."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7078857.stm

"We humans face two problems of desperate importance. The first is our global ecological plight. The second is our difficulty acknowledging the first."

Does he have a point? I believe he does.

When you bring up pollution with most people, the image that naturally pops into their head is going to be a smoking car exhaust, an industrial sector, a mountain of rotting tires. Yet despite significantly cleaner cars and tighter environmental regulations than 30 years ago, negative human impact is rapidly becoming an even more critical concern. What do the above mentioned contributors of pollution have in common? For every human in an industrialized nation, the demand for these pollutant contributors increases. We have made progress in the improving the environmental qualities of these factors, yet we simply cannot keep up with the quantities and demand reflected by a rapidly growing industrialized population.

The chicken or the egg? In this case, it's not which came first, it's which one has gotta go. Do we sacrifice our freedom to technologically innovate, our transportation, our standard of living, whilst merely delaying the inevitable destruction of our health and planet, just for the sake of ignoring the controversial root of the problem? In my eyes, a sustainable solution is far more feasible than futile delay. And let's not forget that this type of pollution isn't the only wall overpopulation will eventually lead us into; fresh water, 2% of water on Earth, is already very finite. Previously featured on CSNBC, Green Chip Stocks (http://www.greenchipstocks.com) even states: "The Earth is running out of fresh water."and "...the water industry closely resembles the oil industry in its infancy..." recommending early investment in fresh water as a precious resource. Population growth in Africa has repeatedly outpaced the development of agriculture to feed children. An estimated 97% of urban Indian drinking water is contaminated with human feces. We can hit many birds with one stone.

As Feeney puts it: "Inevitably, our numbers will come down, whether voluntarily or through such natural means as famine or disease."

Visit John Feeneys own overpopulation blog at growthmadness.org