Reality: only 30 percent of Americans recycle on a regular basis.  Less than ten states offer deposit-return laws on pop, water and beer containers.  Almost zero recycling occurs for cans and tins bought out of grocery stores.  Water conservation remains a standing joke. 

 

Gasoline consumption continues in eight and six cylinder cars and trucks as if there is no tomorrow or Peak Oil.  Smoke stacks pour billions of tons of carbon and particulate into the air. Our carbon footprint explodes off the charts.  

 

Rivers on most continents pour their toxic waters into our oceans. Americans continue to “Roundup and Weed Begone” their yards by the millions of gallons of toxins that drip into ground water reservoirs and rivers.

 

United States of America third fastest growing country in the world.

My long time friend Joe Guzzardi, a native Californian and senior writing fellow at California’s for Population Stabilization, www.CapsWeb.org , brings a much more sobering view of conservation and environment in America.  Please give my readers a better view on our long term population predicament:

 

“Three years ago, the Optimum Population Trust commissioned the London School of Economics to study childbirth and its long term environmental impact. The report concluded that meeting the unfulfilled birth control needs of women who indicated a desire to limit reproduction would reduce unintended births by 72 percent and cut the projected 2050 world population by half a billion to 8.6 billion.

 

Extending its calculations, the LSE concluded 12 billion fewer “people-years” would be lived and 34 gigatons of CO2 that would otherwise be generated could be saved. In short, condoms and other safe birth control methods represent the maximum green.

 

“One reason so few intelligent debates about overpopulation occur is that the mind can’t grasp the staggering numbers at the issue’s core like billions and gigatons. To break population growth into more digestible bites, consider California and the data contained in the 1940 and 2010 U.S Bureau of the Census reports. For natives like me who remember California back when, the findings are stunning.

 

“Comparing the 1940 census to today, a host of negatives appears obvious. Seven decades ago, only six California cities had populations of 100,000 or more: Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco. But overpopulation which is fueled in large part by another unmentionable, over-immigration, has created 6 cities in 2010 with populations greater than 100,000. In 1940, California was the nation’s fifth-largest state. As California approaches 40 million people, it’s the most populated and the most adversely impacted by sprawl and pollution. According to Forbes Magazine, California has four of the top five dirtiest cities in America including three in the once pristine San Joaquin Valley: Bakersfield, Modesto and Fresno.

 

“As a result of California’s unsustainable population increases the Golden State, once synonymous with unspoiled beaches, vineyards and the magnificent Sierra Nevada now has the nation’s most densely urbanized areas.

“California ranks in the top three nationwide when measured by population density: Los Angeles, San Francisco/Oakland and San Jose. In Los Angeles, an average 7,000 residents live on each square mile-—people on top of people. Even tiny Delano with its 54,000 residents ranks fourth with 5,500 humans per square mile, higher in density than New York/Newark.

 

“Unchecked population growth makes every social challenge harder to resolve. Each time a new person is added to the existing population, the crises facing education, crime, medical care and mass transit have fewer solutions.

 

“There’s good news to report, however. After years of conservationists pounding away about limiting population, a key demographic may finally have gotten the message.

 

“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Vital Statistics reported that the teen birthrate declined 9 percent between 2009 and 2010 to 34 births per 1,000 women ages 15-19.  A CDC spokesman called the drop “phenomenal.”

 

“The climb back to population stability is still uphill. But teen awareness is a first, important step to a smaller and greener society.”

 

In the end, human overpopulation continues at breakneck speed around the world and in the United States. We remain on course to add 138 million people to the USA within 38 years. It’s not sustainable as to water, clean air, energy and resources.  Check out the follow two videos to graphically show you where we are headed.

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Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents - from the Arctic to the South Pole - as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. His latest book is: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World by Frosty Wooldridge, copies at 1 888 280 7715/ Motivational program: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World by Frosty Wooldridge, click: http://www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com