Every week, I carry my recycling to the curb in Westminster, Colorado. At the same time, I look out over the city bristling with light rail, RTD, bicycles and everyone pretending to move with ‘green’ actions. Denver’s good citizens recycle and care about our environment just like me! Wrong! Only 30 percent of Coloradans recycle. Peter Coors made sure of that by his successful efforts to kill our bottle, can and plastic recycling laws, not once, but twice!
But no matter how much progress we make on ‘green’ anything with media hype, our out-of-control population growth wipes out any gains by the most compelling recycling and conservation programs—in the nation and across the planet. America 3.1 million annually. It expects to add 100 million in 35 years as that growth explodes exponentially.
Therefore, plans fall behind the harsh reality of population growth, car growth, housing growth and habitat destruction. Have we solved our ‘carbon footprint’ impact or our ‘ecological footprint’ magnification? NOT!
As Jack Hart in Portland, Oregon said, “Every day we dump more planet-threatening gas into the atmosphere. Why? Because at the same time Portland's metro-area population has grown by 42 percent! We cancel out every reduction in CO2 emissions with a gain in CO2 emitters. Projections say the metro population will grow by another million by 2030 -- even double to 3.85 million by 2060. Do you really think anything we can do will meet the goal of actually reducing total CO2 emissions?”
Guess what folks! Denver follows right down the path of self-destruction!
Hart continued, “A strange taboo keeps us from talking about the actual cause of global warming and a deadly smorgasbord of other environmental problems. In this supposedly plain-talking era, a former presidential candidate will tell us how Viagra cured his ED, but hardly anybody will talk about what's trashing the Earth. Erectile dysfunction's a bummer. But the fate of our planet is a little more worrisome.
”The taboo afflicts most media, including this newspaper. The Oregonian's Earth Day editorial urged support for politicians who back energy-efficient buildings, wind power, public transportation and so on. Everything but population stabilization!
”When it comes to global warming, we're ignoring one simple truth: The Earth doesn't care about per-capita greenhouse-gas production. It's the total amount of CO2 in the air that matters.”
Back to Colorado! We spend another $121 million on the Gross Reservoir expansion. We add another $421 million to dam the Cashe Poudre River! Therefore, we add another million people to Colorado in ten years! More impact, more growth, more disaster facing future generations.
Fellow Coloradans, this problem runs planet-wide. The USA expects an added 100 million in 30 years—driven by legal and illegal immigration. The planet grows by one billion people every 13 years—but no one wants to talk about that—least of all the Catholic Church or Islam or any of them!
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As Hart said, “We fixate on global warming, while our rampaging population mows down the rest of the planet's inhabitants behind our backs. When Oregon's offshore salmon stocks collapsed this spring, the blame fell on the Sacramento Delta, where many of the fish originate. A former oceanography professor who works in the area said, "If you want to blame something, it's the increasing population of California."
