A book review: Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife by Dave Foreman
Every week, I write relentless commentaries on America's population-immigration-environmental predicament. I feel like most of my work falls on deaf ears after 40 years of writing and speaking on population issues. Our U.S. Congress allowed 100 million people to settle into our country in the last 40 years. At current growth rates, we expect another 138 million within 38 years. (Source: www.Pew.com , "US Population Projections" by Fogel/Martin) It's not about the immigrant, but how many can we absorb with the world adding 80 million desperate people annually, net gain. That means we are becoming the sacrifice zone for world overpopulation.
My two books: Immigration's Unarmed Invasion--Deadly Consequences (eight years ago) and America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans, (three years ago) spelled out exactly what we face and how to change course--but I am positive that our leaders and the majority of Americans do not possess a clue as to our portentous future as a civilization. They (we) don't understand how an added 138 million people will devastate our civilization. Overpopulation will quite literally degrade our environment and our American way of life! All the while, the American people rely on the intellectually arrogant Congressional critters and our presidents to serve us--but instead; they keep adding 3.1 million people into this country year in and year out. (Source: www.cis.org , Dr. Steven Camarata)
Ironically, no matter how many souls we bring to this country for a better life, they come from a line that grows by 80 million annually. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muw22wTePqQ
Today, at seven billion humans around the planet and accelerating, humanity needs more food and water to survive. In America, with 315 million hungry people, we use tractors, planters and combines to feed ourselves with vegetables, grains, beef and chickens.
At the same time, few people understand the ramifications of adding 100 million people to America by 2035--a scant 23 years from now. To feed their explosive numbers, we must destroy 25.4 acres per added American known as "ecological footprint." Each added American utilizes 25.4 acres to support that person.
( www.footprintnetwork.org ). If you multiply 25 acres times 100 million, that equals 2.54 billion acres of arable wilderness must be destroyed.
What does that mean for our wildlife? What does it mean for our animal habitat? What does it mean for all the big wild ones that struggle to maintain their food sources for themselves and their families? Today, 250 species suffer extinction in the lower 48 states annually. That equals 2,500 species going extinct every decade. (Source: Dept of Interior, US gov)
Harvard University biologist Dr. E.O. Wilson said, " The worst thing that will probably happen--in fact is already well underway--is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us."
Dave Foreman of www.rewilding.org wrote Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife to give us an idea of the death toll of animal life in America and worldwide. According to the High Country News road kill study, February 7, 2005, Americans kill 1 million vertebrates trying to cross our roads daily, which equates to 365 million annually. (http://www.hcn.org/issues/291/15268)
How many species suffer extinction daily around the planet? Dr. Norman Myers, Oxford University, United Kingdom, substantiates 80 to 100 species end their time on this planet every day via human habitat encroachment. Humans kill species at such a prolific rate that it is deemed the "Sixth Extinction Session." The first five sessions arrived as ice ages, meteors and other deadly events.
Foreman's book cannot be dismissed. It cannot be ignored. It cannot be put down once started. Foreman shows the unraveling the wild world at the hands of humanity. For anyone that thinks unlimited population growth can continue, this book knocks out all the myths perpetrated by economists, religious leaders and pro-immigration advocates.
In my own media battles on the population/immigration/environmental front, I have had to contend with big time radio talk show hosts who support unlimited growth, i.e., Ernest Hancock of www.freedomphoenix.com . Top television news personalities such as Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams and Charlie Rose will not touch the subject, but they report about the consequences--failing to make connection--on purpose.
But the slaughtering continues:
"Upwards of two hundred species, mostly of the large, slow-breeding variety, are becoming extinct here every day because more and more of the earth's carrying capacity is systematically being converted into human carrying capacity. These species are being burnt out, starved out, and squeezed out of existence--thanks to technologies that most people, I'm afraid, think of as technologies of peace. I hope it will not be too long before the technologies that support our population explosion begin to be perceived as no less hazardous to the future of life on this planet than the endless production of radioactive wastes." Daniel Quinn
While you may hear a lot about "carrying capacity", you never hear about carrying capacity for all the other creatures on our planet. It's like they don't exist or are unimportant. Foreman loves wild things and I love them, too.
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