Man's biggest impact on the environment can be summarized in a number: 7 billion.
Decades ago, there was a good deal of talk about the "Population Explosion." You don't hear much about it today, but the world's population has passed or will soon pass 7 billion. I haven't counted them all myself. America was roughly 180 million and now is roughly 300 million.
What is good for the individual is not always good for the species. Every morning most take a dump and it winds up, even properly treated in our rivers and streams. Most of us would like to eat today. Most backward countries would like to advance. Yet all we hear about is CO2. Stop the CO2 and you still have Los Angles and Las Vegas fighting over dwindling water damned up from the Colorado. You still have cut and burn agriculture crowding out rainforests. You still have ocean fishing grounds being depleted.
The individual, is, for the most part doing well. We have had smaller wars than World War II, people live longer and modern science has kicked many diseases to the side of the road. No Black Death and smallpox is contained to local problems. In this country the biggest epidemics are obesity and smoking. The average person wants more stuff, not less. Going back to the pre-Industrial age, I should be dead twice. Most people didn't survive losing their appendix or get stents.
Population probably can't be controlled. Eight billion, ten. At some point there will be more than the planet can absorb. The Earth has had, at least, three major mass extinctions and some smaller ones. If God is coming he needs to be here before then. Let's all meet somewhere and have some chili cheese fries and beer and talk about it.
PS: I'm not being negative at all...the Earth always recovers given a couple of hundred million years.
Decades ago, there was a good deal of talk about the "Population Explosion." You don't hear much about it today, but the world's population has passed or will soon pass 7 billion. I haven't counted them all myself. America was roughly 180 million and now is roughly 300 million.
What is good for the individual is not always good for the species. Every morning most take a dump and it winds up, even properly treated in our rivers and streams. Most of us would like to eat today. Most backward countries would like to advance. Yet all we hear about is CO2. Stop the CO2 and you still have Los Angles and Las Vegas fighting over dwindling water damned up from the Colorado. You still have cut and burn agriculture crowding out rainforests. You still have ocean fishing grounds being depleted.
The individual, is, for the most part doing well. We have had smaller wars than World War II, people live longer and modern science has kicked many diseases to the side of the road. No Black Death and smallpox is contained to local problems. In this country the biggest epidemics are obesity and smoking. The average person wants more stuff, not less. Going back to the pre-Industrial age, I should be dead twice. Most people didn't survive losing their appendix or get stents.
Population probably can't be controlled. Eight billion, ten. At some point there will be more than the planet can absorb. The Earth has had, at least, three major mass extinctions and some smaller ones. If God is coming he needs to be here before then. Let's all meet somewhere and have some chili cheese fries and beer and talk about it.
PS: I'm not being negative at all...the Earth always recovers given a couple of hundred million years.
