PLANET EARTH

Many of you may not realize it, but ecology effects us daily. Every time you turn on the ignition in your car, you are changing the environment. Whenever you are concerned about overflowing landfills (or throw too much away), worry about global warming, the disappearance of tropical rainforests and the ozone layer, or the killing off of many animals to make room for houses, parking lots, and other public buildings.

The measure of environmental impact is embodied in the I=PAT equation: the scale of human impact (I) on the environment is equal to the product of the population size (P), consumption per person or affluence (A), and the damage done by technology (T). Since 1850, our population has increased fivefold, and the use of energy per person (A times T) has multiplied fourfold. Thus, in the last 150 years, our impact on the environment has increased about twenty fold! Just imagine what will happen as the population continues to multiply, people become richer, and technology grows bigger and more destructive!

We all must be aware of these ecological issues for one main reason: we only have one Earth! No one can replace good soil, fresh water, and other organisms that are parts of ecosystems that are indispensable to society. We cannot survive without nature, which among many other things, maintains the balance of gases in the atmosphere (due to photosynthesis), fertilize soils, produce fresh water, and maintain genetic diversity.

Beginning now, we have two options:

1. Continue today's trajectory until disease and hunger combines to halt the growth of human population, leading to catastrophe.
2. We can do something to slow down population growth as soon as possible (hopefully by 10 billion!). By regulating birth rates by our own submission, we can help bring the current population boom into a decline. One way to practice this is to only have two children--one to replace each parent. We do not need any genocide, wars, etc. to keep population down--we just need to make the decision on our own to have less children!

Of course, this second solution brings up much argument. Some say it is a racist and elitist idea, giving the rich and dominant a vehicle to control the poor. However, this is not true. This solution actually can bring about some equality--everyone will be working together to save humanity for the better. Of course, there may be a few people that are extremely opposed to this solution, but ask yourself this: think forward many generations. Would you want your children living in a world where there are too many mouths to feed and no natural resources left? Just think about it!