An interesting little phenomenon is underway throughout the month of February called the “Global Population Speak Out.” It was first started in 2009 by environmental writer John Feeney. This year, he’s enlisted the help of a group that calls themselves the Population Institute. Their stated goal with the GPSO campaign is to break the taboo of talking publicly about Earth’s human population problem and related ecological and environmental ills.
Instead of writing one of my usual posts about research, I’m just going to direct you to the GPSO site, and also to the Center for Biological Diversity’s Overpopulation Campaign which has some good information about the connections between human population and the current extinction crisis, including this nice little USGS graph showing how species extinction rates are linked to the growth of a single specie’s meta-population:
Credit: USGS
This graph shows it better than a thousand words.
It scares the hell out of me, and makes me grieve for the lost species.
You may wish to have a look at:
http://susuum.wordpress.com/2010/08/
“This year, he’s enlisted the help of a group that calls themselves the Population Institute. Their stated goal with the GPSO campaign is to break the taboo of talking publicly about Earth’s human population problem and related ecological and environmental ills.”
Where else can I read about it?
That graph needs to be shoved in the face of “sportsmen” who claim the animals they kill (often for fun) are “overpopulated” and that humans are mere “stewards” of the situation. They ignore root cause & effect. Man has wiped out natural predators and constricted habitat in countless ways. Shooting the remaining animals “for their own good” is a farce, even if it has become necessary due to imbalances.
This is dramatic. not just for the wildlife but for our own good. we are 7 Billion on the planet and that is projected to rise to 9 billion by 2050….
But 2050 is just a generation away… That’s over 28% increase in just 27 years… What will the situation be in 3050 , do you care? You will not be around but your descendants will …. Actually they will not unless the problem of world population is stemmed rapidly…. otherwise there will be terrible wars over limited resources like food, water and land…
If population continues to rise at the present rate, by year 3050 there would not even be 1m² of space for each human being on the planet….
Soylent Green comes to mind. Is that our future?