The Slick Packaging of Misinformation
This essay is in response to Jeff Wise and his Intelligencer article so frustratingly entitled, “America Could Use Another Boom.”
His subtitle warns us that, “Failing to address population decline may exact a heavy toll.” Number one, we are not in decline. Number two, the US is overpopulated and deep into overshoot... Overshoot means that we are demanding more than our resources can give. Simply consulting the website of the Ecological Footprint Network would have been a way for him to bone up on the science of overshoot. A simple glance at the US Census Bureau’s population clock would counter his claim of population decline....
... since the first Earth Day we have added approximately 131 million Americans to our land – creating a demand for fresh water that is already compromised in a world of varying climate and increasing droughts?...
When the resources of everything from housing to our water supplies are already in critically short supply, my claim that we cannot accommodate a boom in population is just the reality of life in the US today; it is simply and morally about keeping the United States of America afloat....
Not only are we continuing to grow by millions per year, depopulation is exactly what we need. It is the antidote to our stressed-out education systems, housing shortages, pollution, increasing traffic and deteriorating freeways to mention just a few problems. The US desperately needs to stop growing. Why? Because wildlife matters, because biocapacity matters, because infrastructure is limited, because on average every American uses between 82 and 100 gallons of water a day and water sources are already stretched beyond capacity. Because according to the US treasury, as of November of last year, it cost $103 billion dollars just to maintain our national debt...
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