Over-Population

I tend to believe that the world is over-populated right now. My evidence to this proposition isn’t the number of people – it has more to do with the worsening condition of the environment. Things are out of balance. Everything “pollutes,” meaning every living thing consumes resources and excretes waste. But there is a balance. We inhale oxygen and we exhale carbon dioxide. Plants and trees inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. Whether you believe it to be the work of God, gods, or evolution the environment is set up sublimely. It is such an amazing feat of cosmic engineering and the fact that you are alive to read this and I am alive to write it just boggles the mind. An incredible number of amazing events and coincidences have collided to create our existence.

That balance is revealing itself to be more tenuous that we may ever have understood prior to this year 2008. The latest indication of this is trace amounts of our excreted pharmaceuticals showing up in the water supply; never mind the consistent die-offs of bees, fish, and fowl.

Take a Look at the Dump

A more immediate example of this is right down the road from Chico. Head south from Chico on Highway 99 and look to your left right around Neal Road. See that big hill with tires and plastic covering it? That was not a hill when I moved here eight years ago. It was a valley. That is the collective garbage that we, the residents of Butte County, have generated in less than a decade. Incredible.

Now I believe our gross consumption and materialism is a huge societal problem that needs to be corrected but I don’t think that alone will relieve the strain human-kind is placing on the environment. Frankly I just think there are plain too many of us.

Alarming Population Growth

One hundred years ago the world’s population was estimated to be a bit more than 88 million people. That’s a lot of folks to be sure. But as of this writing the world population is estimated to be 6.66 Billion people. The population of the U.S. alone is over 300 million people.

In only one hundred years the population has increased about 75 times. We are a weed, or maybe a tenacious spreading mold.

It is interesting to me that the world’s weather is turning more dramatic. As far as shaking off a parasite goes it makes great sense. Creating extreme temperatures on the high and low end of the thermometer is a good tactic for getting rid of pesky critters.

Jonestown Revisited

We watched a documentary last night on the rise and fall of the People’s Church. For those of you who are unfamiliar the People’s Church was started in the 1950’s in Indianapolis by a charismatic but dark and troubled preacher named Jim Jones. The church was an incredible feat when it started. They really had managed to bridge the racial divide. It was one of the very first de-segregated churches and as such it drew the wrath of many. Jones moved the church west to Ukiah, California and the church’s membership grew. Then in 1977 the People’s Church moved to Guyana in South America and there the members managed to carve their own little piece of Eden out of the jungle. But things were not right. Along with his increasing power and prestige Jones’ dark side emerged. Paranoia set in. When Congressman Leo Ryan came to visit the enclave he and four other members of his entourage were gunned down. Then horror transpired. Knowing the church that had morphed into a cult would not be allowed to continue after this murder of the Congressman’s party Jim Jones encouraged his followers to drink Kool-aid laced with cyanide. On November 18th, 1978 nine hundred and nine members of the People’s Church, men, women, and children, drank poison and died together in the jungle.

It is an incredibly sad story, not just because of the horror of the ending, but because the People’s Church had so much incredible potential for real social change. Not only race but also class distinctions were completely broken down.

But the church rose and fell on the back of its one flawed leader. Is this the Achilles heel of leadership? None of us are perfect – so does the concentration of so much power in the hands of so few necessarily put too much strain on those breaking points?

Democracy is a system that is supposed to disseminate the power to the masses but it can be improved upon. How can we make our voices louder?

The environment – physical, natural, and political – is crying out to us for change. But where do we go from here?

Any ideas? Madbob@madbob.com.