Gerry Hawkes wrote:
>
> The unchecked growth of human population coupled with increasing
> consumption and pollution will override our best attempts at forest
> management. This is already painfully obvious in many parts of the world.
>
> Foresters should treat population growth as seriously as they would a
> forest fire that threatens to destroy all that they have worked for. We
> can advocate sustainable population policies and still have a great love
> and admiration for people and their accomplishments. In fact working for
> a healthy, happy, sustainable future is the most compassionate,
> intelligent thing we can do.
>
> - Gerry Hawkes - ghawkes@sover.net - Woodstock, Vermont
To this, Daniel L. Schmoldt wrote:
>Myself and many of the colleagues (scientists) that I speak with mention
>population as the root cause of most of our envrionmental, social, and
>political problems (nationally and globally). And this population problem is
>not just one of excess (too many people), but also one of imbalance. The
>planet's resources are inequitably available and consumed by different nations
>and cultures. These imbalances create social and political stresses that
>exaccerbate the stresses produced by over-consumption.
>Maybe it's time that organizations like SAF express their concerns regarding
>over-population and recommend strong policy changes to bring human population
>and resource consumption more in line with the planet's capabilities. If
>policy-makers and politician get this sort of input from many and from diverse
>organizations, maybe then they will realize that it is time that something be
>done. Funny...you don't hear a single U.S. Presidential candidate mention
>this issue, even though it is the most serious one facing our nation, as well
>as all others.
>I've been wondering if it's just been the population paranoia of myself and my
>small circle of colleagues, or if there is a substantial group of similarly
>(and justifiably) concerned people out there. I'm relieved that it's the
>latter. Now I can tell my therapist to take a hike.
>DAN
>Daniel L. Schmoldt schmoldt@vt.edu
Dear Fellow-Foresters,
I've been reading the postings by many of you on human population growth and its
effect on depleting natural resources. I agree with Dr. Hawkes' and
Dr. Schmoldt's conviction that control of population growth is the key to
the reduction in resource consumption all over the world. At the same time,
let me bring your attention once again to a posting by a Dr. Garcia
from France:
Oscar Garcia wrote:
>On average, a child born in the USA will consume during his lifetime
>roughly the same amount of resources than 100 children born in India.
>I wonder if this sort of facts would have any relevance to this
>discussion? ;-)
>Oscar Garcia - ogarcia@nancy.engref.fr
Nobody seems to have noticed this posting. The big assumption we make
when we look at population growth as THE reason for an increase in resource
consumption (not only wood and forests, but also food, clothing and any
consumer item from stapler pins to cars) is that people all over the world
consume equally, because total consumption is:
(Amount of resource consumed per person) * (Total number of people)
I strongly believe that the biggest reason for the steep rise in resource
consumption is the stark disparity in the amount of resources consumed by
people, as Oscar pointed out. How can we blame it ALL on population
growth when ~30% of the world population consumes ~75% of world resources
and the remaining 70% live on the remaining 25%?
Friends, don't misunderstand me. I am all for population reduction and
birth control. I am originally from the south Indian state of Kerala
where we attained a remarkable 0% population growth recently. I am motivated
to point out this point of view because whenever I go for seminars and
discussions on this topic, people generally ignore this point of view, and
also ignore anybody who raises the point. Seems to me that they are too
scared to take this point for discussion, because they are scared to look at
their own resource consumption habits. I am a strong believer in the fact that
discipline at an individual level to consume only what is necessary is the
key to lesser consumption. That together with population control will
bring in the global change everybody is looking out for. We really need to
ask ourselves at every instance of natural resource consumption:
DO I NEED THIS?
rather than
CAN I AFFORD IT?
If I got some of you thinking, my mission is accomplished. SAF should
think about this too.
Sincerely
Rajiv Raja
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RAJIV G. RAJA
Forest Molecular Genetics
Department of Forestry, 8C, Agricultural Hall
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74078, USA
Tel: (405)744-1008 (Home) (405)744-6599 (Work)
Email: varma@okway.okstate.edu
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