A Parched Future
Population Growth
US census bureau reports America grows by 1 person every 10 seconds:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
This results in annual population growth of 3.1 million people
• National population increase during 5 minute radio interview = 30 people
• National population increase during 30 minute feature broadcast = 180 people
• National population increase every 24 hours = 8640
• National population increase every year = 3.1 million
Natural increase annual: 1.9 million (births minus deaths)
Average annual people admitted as legal immigrants into the US: 1+ million more citizens
The nation’s population is growing at 1.0% per year, which may not sound significant – but it is. In 70 years of growing at such a rate, the national population will double in size, while our bio-capacity is almost certain to be diminished due to the growing population’s demands on resources and open space.
Water links:
http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2008/world/us-faces-era-of-water-scarcity/
http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/indicator7.htm
Water
Another liquidity crisis -- having nothing to do with money credit -- is looming for many in United States. This one’s about an actual liquid, namely water.
• Unsustainable US population growth stretches water supplies thin, challenges sustainable management.
• In 2003, the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, published a survey that found water managers in 36 states “anticipate water shortages locally, regionally or statewide within the next ten years.”
• A recent international poll conducted by Circle of Blue showed 91 percent of people believe that a shortage of fresh water is a very serious (71 percent) or somewhat serious (20 percent) problem.
• The Ogallala Aquifer, located beneath the Great Plains, is depleted at a rate of some 84 billion gallons annually; since pumping started in the 1940s, Ogallala water levels have dropped by more than 100 feet (30 meters) in some areas.
• In 2002, California (facing persistent droughts) put into effect a state law that requires developers to prove that new projects have a plan for providing at least 20 years worth of water before local water authorities can approve their projects. For the first time, according to a June 2008 report in the New York Times, several local governments in southern California are actually enforcing the law: They’re requiring developers to prove where new homes will secure their water, and in some cases delaying construction permits.
• The Colorado River, the largest in the southwestern United States, now rarely makes it to the sea. As the demand for water increased over the years, diversions from the river have risen to where they now routinely drain it dry.
Denial
“Pro-growth” & “infinite growth” vested interests essentially accuse sustainability and population stabilizations advocates of denial all the time – claiming the latter are in denial of the infinite possibilities for perpetual growth.
Anthony Judge, Former Director of Communications and Research at the Union of International Associations
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/denial.php#6
For instance, while climate change has now been accepted by many as an "inconvenient truth", it is easy to argue that this “inconvenient truth” is being used as a fig leaf to disguise the even more inconvenient truth of population growth. The same dynamic of denial could be posited for issues as diverse as “sprawl”, “carbon emissions”, “habitat destruction”, “species extinctions”, “overfishing”, “poverty”, “poor health care”, “immigration”, etc. All of which, in demonstrable ways, are either based upon or aggravated by population growth.
Rosamund McDougall, Optimum Population Trust:
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/Biologist.pdf
What was it about the Easter Islanders that prevented them from recognizing that their population was overshooting the island’s carrying capacity, and from taking action to curb growth? An absence of contraception should not have been the answer, because some ancient societies regulated their birth rates using natural methods. Was it a cultural blindness to dealing with their population problem? How history repeats itself. This question needs to be asked in the context of 21st century taboos about population policy, because to disconnect the issues of population and environmental sustainability is surely to deny the prospect of long-term human survival.
Chuck Burr, a cultural ecology author and permaculture educator:
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=376&Itemid=68
…Environmental generational amnesia is another key reason why most people do not appreciate the impact of overpopulation. We only remember the population and the environment of our lifetimes.
Patrick Curry, author “Ecological Ethics: an introduction”
http://books.google.be/books?hl=en&id=Hor5nUXV0eQC&q=denial+syndrome#v=snippet&q=denial%20syndrome&f=false
…when it comes to thinking about and discussing human population, we are usually not dealing with logic, concepts or evidence, so much as mentality, and one that embodies a deeply defended anthropocentrism. Thus even many otherwise enlightened or progressive individuals, who have no problem arguing for lower levels of consumption or greener technologies, bitterly resist looking human population – and all the more so, the present over population – in the face. The result is what Sandy Irvine (2002) calls the overpopulation denial syndrome: a disgraceful silence on this subject, enforced by the fear of being accused of misanthropy, authoritarianism, racism or sexism, as a result of which anyone who does raise it is almost automatically accused of one or more of those unpleasant things (The charge of racism being particularly potent).
This silence often involves an unholy alliance of the political right and left. For the right, when religious, “overpopulation” represents an intolerable threat to the dogma of the sanctity of individual human life… when non-religious the threat is to the secular cult of humanism. For the left, just to raise the issue of overpopulation is evidence of hatred of humanity, people of color, or women.
Health Care
The US currently spends $2.5 trillion per year on healthcare. This amounts to $8,200 per person. As the population increases, health care costs will increase. The question, then, is what is the marginal cost of the additional population?
We have some great analysis available as a result of the health care reform debate. Recently US House of Representatives legislation proposes to cover 37 million non-elderly, ensuring health coverage for roughly 95% of the US population. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the impact on budget deficits of the House plan at $100 billion per year - - over 10 years roughly $1 trillion. This amounts to a marginal cost of approximately $2,700 per person.
Links:
http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358
