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Population increase a disaster to the climate

Impact of more people weighs heavily on the Earth
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Cowichan Valley Earth Guardians crew has been very active in climate change issues on behalf of youth, but dealing with a lot of naysayers. Can adults possibly deny the effects of population on the climate? (Photo courtesy of Katia Bannister)

Billions and billions served.

The first thing you’ll think about when reading that statement is McDonald’s. What should pop into our minds is how on earth can this planet continue to serve billions and billions of more people? It can’t happen.

Conversations and demonstrations about the climate change crisis, as far as we’re aware, hardly mention the impact of the human population. It is clearly the single biggest threat far above all the other factors.

Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, herself, should be firing this fact out there since it’s a point the nay-sayers can’t really scoff about.

No one can deny what is happening with out-of-control population numbers. There are 7.7 billion people on Earth as of April this year. It took 200,000 years of human existence to reach one billion people and only 200 years since then to hit the seven billion mark.

China has 18.5 per cent of the world’s population and India has 17.9 per cent for a ridiculous combined total of 36.4 per cent - in just two nations.

The annual death rate absolutely has to start exceeding the birth rate or this planet is in serious trouble based on that trend alone. More people means more land cleared for development, resulting in the loss of more trees and habitat for wildlife stocks that are dwindling everywhere.

Humans cull animal populations that are a nuisance simply because we can, but no one is doing anything to keep the human population in check.

Can you imagine the reduction in the carbon footprint by having one billion less people on the Earth? We simply can’t process more human waste and alarming mounds of garbage from consumer products, for starters, without serious damage to the environment, as we’re discovering now.

That’s not to mention the additional vehicles on the road and the ensuing emissions. The list goes on.

Getting world leaders to agree on anything is an impossibility, but perhaps China and India should take the initiative because their numbers are far in excess of everyone else’s. The need has never been greater for the sake of the planet’s future.



Don Bodger

About the Author: Don Bodger

I've been a part of the newspaper industry since 1980 when I began on a part-time basis covering sports for the Ladysmith-Chemainus Chronicle.
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