Letters for May 16, 2019

Population contest

Re “Human being” (Letters, May 9):

I entirely agree with Bruce Van Dyke about the world being vastly overpopulated. It always annoys me when someone tries to make the analogy that all the humans on Earth could fit in the Grand Canyon, or some other random, cavernous space. So what? Just because seven billion locusts could, theoretically, be packed into a town the size of Carson City, does this mean that seven billion locusts should be tolerated? Like it or not, the point is that we Homo Sapiens are now an unrestricted plague upon the Earth. We are lousing it up beyond recognition, and we have caused global warming and other insidious problems with the climate. We have cursed the world with the automobile and other forms of rapid transit, and have even junked up outer space with the debris of space satellites in orbit. The oceans have been littered with incomprehensible amounts of plastic, and there is not a beach on the entire Earth that hasn’t any plastic in its sands. We pump obscene amounts of carbon into the atmosphere on a daily basis, never ending, year after year, decade after decade. Our depredations upon other life forms have rid the world of exotic species that can only be read about in books. As for the standard of living, billions of people in the world suffer privations that are unthinkable to the current demented President of this country, who has absolutely no conception about the reality of anything. The list of problems caused by human overpopulation goes on. Don’t try to tell me that the world is not overpopulated.

Steven Hetzer

Reno

So over it

Re “What’s your problem” (Notes from the Neon Babylon, May 2):

Bruce Van Dyke mentioned the over-population issue. Here are some additional facts to consider.

So, few people understand that the elephant in the room is overpopulation. The dangers from overpopulation are greater than any other factor in the climate change issue.

When you look out the window of a plane and see all that unused land, the conclusion is that overpopulation doesn’t exist. But land is not the problem. It’s natural resources. Water, food production, oil, gas, electric power, iron, copper, aluminum and many more minerals we use to produce the products we use.

If the population stopped increasing tomorrow, we would still have demand for more cars, more trucks, more buses, more trains, more planes, more ships, more gas, more oil, more water, more food, more minerals, more electricity, more houses, more home devices and gadgets, more farm equipment, more businesses, more schools and more roads for the next 20 years as the young population grows up.

The oceans are being fished out to the point some species no longer provide any reasonable amount of harvest. Our rivers, oceans and air are polluted.

Just less than one billion people live without electricity, and this is getting smaller as we produce more and bring it into more homes at the cost of more carbon. There are 2,100 new coal plants being planned worldwide. There are already too many people in the world for the natural resources we have and not enough affordable housing.

All the above affects climate change as our carbon footprint gets greater as more and more people acquire all these modern devices. As cars become more gas efficient, we still lose as the number of cars on the road increases with population growth.

The population of the world is increasing at an alarming rate. Even in America, the birth rate is increasing, where it once was below 1.9 per family.

What can we do about this terrible problem? Educate, educate, educate. Make every person in the world aware of this terrible problem. Scream this message from every newspaper, magazine and TV news program and teach it in every school around the world: Contraceptions free for all. Reverse Trump’s Gage rule.

World starvation is on the rise. The demand for food will increase constantly. Stopping population growth now is the only way to catchup. Some say most starvation is caused by the poor not earning enough to buy the food they need to survive. But if all could afford the food they wanted, would there be enough to go around as our population grows?

The demands for power, food and clean water for just the population on Earth now will increase faster than we can supply them. The needs for just the next 20 years of the population growing up cannot be met. We are on the road to destruction. We need to reduce the population to maybe 5 billion.

Arden Scott

Reno