Colab Blog

Overpopulation Is a Serious Problem

Yellow=Thesis
Green= Radical Claims
Blue= Conventional Thinking
Table of Contents: Further Readings
Frosty Wooldridge, "Plague of the 21st Century: America’s Overpopulation," Washington Dispatch, March 5, 2004. Copyright © 2004 by the Washington Dispatch. Reproduced by permission of the author.
Overpopulation is rapidly depleting the earth's resources, Frosty Wooldridge contends in the following viewpoint. In the United States overpopulation has resulted in traffic congestion, poverty, and environmental devastation, he claims. Wooldridge warns that failure to control population now will result in horrific population problems for future generations (THESIS). Frosty Wooldridge is a teacher and population activist. He is also the author of Incursion into America: Immigration's Unarmed Invasion—Deadly Consequences.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. According to Wooldridge, how many people are added to the U.S. population every year?
2. Name two of the consequences the author argues are the result of overpopulation.
3. Which three countries does Wooldridge argue ignored their population problem until they were unsolvable?
Albert Einstein wrote, "The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." Nonetheless, governors, our president, Congress and other leaders stagger forward with 'solutions' that accelerate America's population problems.
In the past 10 years, the world added 880 million people. America added 33 million and California added six million—on its way from 35 million to 55 million in the next 30 years. Like California, many states found themselves inundated with sprawl, gridlock, rising home prices, new forms of crime and diseases. Today, America stands at 292 million and grows by 3.3 million per year. Just past the mid-century, America will add 200 million people.
Dwindling Resources
Soon past the mid-century, those added millions will be struggling for dwindling resources, water, food and a diminishing quality of life. In western states like California and Arizona, a drought in 2050 will become a disaster along with many other consequences.
For graphic examples, one need only look at India and China. In a recent speech, Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, said, "In my country, 4 million people are born in the streets, live in the streets and die in the streets—never having used a toilet or shower." If massive population is so good, why is India so poor?
Overpopulation will become the 'plague of the 21st century.'
Where is America headed? Do we want such a legacy for our own children? According to 60 Minutes, we have one million homeless children struggling in our inner cities today. What will be the fate of another 200 million people who create homeless children? How many are too many and when will Americans address that fact? Which leader?
At this time—no one. Politicians scurry like cockroaches at the mention of population stabilization. Corporations demand larger markets as if nonrenewable resources will appear out of a magician's black hat. We're like a runaway freight train with no brakes headed toward the edge of the Grand Canyon.
Americans face consequences in every corner of our nation. Our East and West coasts, teeming with too many people, strive to deal with escalating water, air and land dilemmas. Acid rains pound our lakes with chemicals. Our cities create thick clouds where millions of children breathe carcinogens with every breath. Farmers kill microbes in the soil with fertilizers and pesticides—leaving us with contaminated foods for eating. Each year, 1.3 million new cancers are detected in our US citizens—an epidemic of our own making.
Eleanor Roosevelt said it 50 years ago; "We must prevent human tragedy rather than run around trying to save ourselves after an event has already occurred. Unfortunately, history clearly shows that we arrive at catastrophe by failing to meet the situation, by failing to act when we should have acted. The opportunity passes us by and the next disaster is always more difficult and compounded than the last one."
Immediate Action Is Necessary
By failing to act now, what kinds of consequences will we as a nation face when we hit 11/42 billion people? In the US with 200 million more people, that's 77% more traffic, 77% added planes in the air, 77% increased pollution, 77% faster uses of already limited resources like water and gasoline. With each new added American, 1 to 12.6 acres of wilderness is plowed up to support that person. In the next 10 years, according to the National Academy of Sciences, 2,500 plants and animals will become extinct in the USA because of habitat destruction via population growth. Why aren't we addressing the moral and biological consequences of such horrific extinction rates?
When you add global warming, ocean fisheries collapsing, acid rain, ozone destruction, drought, contaminated water supplies, poisoning and sterilization of the soils by insecticides and fertilizers—we're building unimaginable consequences.
How serious is our problem? Upon receiving the Sanger Award for Human Rights in 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King said, "... the plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution, but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problems and the education of billions of people who are its victims."
Immigration Must Be Controlled
Fifty years ago, Bangladesh, India and China ignored their accelerating populations. Today, their problems are so gargantuan, they can't solve them. As if like lemmings, America's leaders follow the same steps. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, we're allowing the immigration of more than 2.3 million people annually from countries that refuse family planning. Since the American female has a fertility rate of 2.03 children, it's not Americans causing the rising population tide. We need immigration reform and reduction to less than 175,000 people annually before population momentum forces us into an unsustainable society. If we don't tame this 'immigration monster,' it will grow past our ability to manage it.
If we do nothing, we commit our children and all living things to a difficult future by not addressing overpopulation in 2003. It's a disservice to ourselves, our nation and future generations.
4. Wrie two “ideas for writing” such as the ones following the essay in this book, for the text that you found.
1. What major problem has a simple solution?
Population control is a major problem that can be sovled by liminting the reproduction of humans.
2. Why don’t we improve our institutions and therfore our lives, even though we now process a great deal of hard information about ourselves?
I believe we don’t improve our instititutions because we are living in the moment of now. Most people don’t think about the future and how are actions will affect the future.