The Legacy We Leave Behind A tribute to the well-lived lives of Dave Foreman and Herman Daly

When Paul McCartney, Graham Nash and any of the rest of the Rolling Stones leave the planet I will be inconsolable. I came of age during the music revolution and their music has continued to bring joy and inspiration to my life. But I won’t mourn them in the same way I mourn environmental heroes. Although my dear parents gave me, their first-born, guitar and piano lessons, I was never destined to be a musician. I have, however, taken on the mantle of an activist, caring about the earth in my career and writings. When I hear that my heroes inspired by the Earth Day have left the planet, I feel an inner tug that asks, who will replace them?

When our musical icons die their music keeps selling and documentaries keep mining their stories. Michael Jackson died 13 years ago and even with recent documentaries detailing the dark side of his life, he still earns 362 million each year for those in his will. Other musicians, influenced by the musicians who came before them, will undoubtedly come along to play the arenas they once filled.

Sadly, when we lose our environmental heroes there is barely a whimper in the major media. There may be a story or two on social media, but the monumental efforts of their life’s work will only be fodder for a film festival someday if someone makes the painstaking effort to raising millions. Fortunately, the two greats we just lost, who were unafraid to discuss overpopulation, will have NGO’s to carry on their work.

We recently had to bid farewell to wildlife advocate Dave Foreman and ecological economist Herman Daly. I have been trying to figure out what they had in common. To me it is their relentless fearlessness at promoting their worldview to a world that is headed in the opposite direction. They each founded movements which will be their continuing legacy. Daly’s brilliance manifested in the organization CASSE, Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, where he served on the executive board until his recent death. Foreman’s life’s work to save the wilderness and all of its inhabitants will continue in the work done by the Rewilding Institute which he founded.

Their lives should not only ask us to continue to support the causes they believed in, but to reflect on what our own legacies will be. They were brilliant people with activist hearts who never gave up their vision for a sustainable planet even though that meant going against the tide and swimming upstream, without a lifejacket. Neither were afraid to tackle the way humans swarm the planet in such an unsustainable way. As an overpopulation activist, I am inspired to continue their legacy by doing my best and demonstrate the same kind of courage. They endured many critics and so can I. There’s just too much at stake.

Those who didn’t know of their work when they were alive, must study their legacy of books and speeches and the work of their NGO’s, because unless we tame the beast that has become us, we will need to ask our favorite bands to start playing our swan song.

Legally Extinct, Why Wildlife Protection laws aren’t enough

There have been many great pieces of legislation written to protect wildlife and the wildlands where they live. Among them: The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, The Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, The Wilderness Act of 1964 and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act of 1989. These pro-wildlife laws all sound good on paper but not only are they are constantly being watered down by pro-development judges and lawyers, there is less and less wilderness to protect. The US lost an additional 17,800 square miles of natural habitat and agricultural land to development between 2002 and 2017, according to the latest 15-year dataset from the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service.

If wild animals had hired the lawyers to write these laws, would they still keep them on retainer? I don’t think so. I think they would demand to have their protections expand to include curbing human population growth. In our current state of protections wildlife may be kept from the brink of extinction, but they are not thriving. Although I love to see bald eagles and trumpeter swans almost daily in the suburbs of the Twin Cities here in the Midwest, I know that we have won a few battles but are losing the war. It’s great to see animals like bald eagles being removed from the endangered species list, but compared to their hay day, they are still rare and compromised in many states. Many ornithologists, for example, believe that the eagle population numbered about half a million birds when Columbus arrived in America, and now their numbers have reached just over 300,000.

The World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet report 2022, couldn’t be more depressing: The report reveals an average decline of 69% in wildlife species populations since 1970. Sadly, we are in the era of our 6th mass extinction, the sixth one our planet has endured. This time however we are the meteor. Human pressure to expand into the range of wild animals destroys habitat, introduces diseases, invasive species, and increases deadly roadkill encounters. Our climate is so full of greenhouse gases that we are baking our ecosystems. All of this is exacerbated by the fact that our human population numbers continue to grow by over 80 million a year hitting the frightening milestone of 8 billion in the fall of 2022.

Globally growth is the quintessential enemy of wildlife. It is fueled by the number of feet as well as how much those feet are consuming. Taming growth, stabilizing our population and then ratcheting it down would do more to help reduce climate gases than all of the COP (Conference of the Parties) climate conferences put together and they are up to 27 now.

The truth is, that humans are at the top of the food chain. That is what makes our high numbers so dangerous to wildlife. Imagine if lions were as populous as locusts. They would take over and eat everything in sight, rendering our planet lifeless. That is what we are doing. We are top predators unable to do anything but behave like locusts because our numbers are so high. All of our wildlife protection laws must incorporate stopping our growth in order truly protect wildlife. No matter how much we love pandas and pangolins, we have more power to protect bobcats and wolves from within the halls of our own legal system and we need to use that power.

The tragedy is that so most of our laws are designed to promote growth. If we divided our laws into two columns, pro-growth or anti-growth, the pro-growth side would win by a landslide. Under the umbrella of growth live so many laws we don’t question their effects anymore, we just accept them as a part of our lives like sunrises and sunsets.

Permits are legally and easily issued to build apartments and stadiums, dams and shopping malls. Utah is a state with serious drought problems, yet they issued over 33,000 building permits last year, more than any other state. Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is a welcome mat for developers who get legal permission to avoid taxes sometimes for as many as 50 years, so they can build their projects with less cost to them and with no commitment to the infrastructures of surrounding communities. Sanctuary cities have popped up across the country designed to combat deportation and detention of immigrants. Berkeley California started this trend. Others have followed. They typically do not detain undocumented workers, and this has become a huge pro-growth policy because it has become a dog whistle to those wanting to come into the US and increased the population of newcomers beyond the capacity of these sanctuary cities to absorb them.

This goes hand in hand with our immigration laws which are also currently acting as pro-growth laws in their lack of enforcement and refinement to address our current overpopulation crisis. They keep the doors of the US open with pressure from corporations, social justice groups and those who believe that the US can still afford to be the release valve for the world’s needy now that we sit at the bloated number of over 333,000,000.

The laws that are missing from the endangered species picture are the laws that would decrease growth. Anti-growth or degrowth laws if you will, are not a part of the national conversation, but they need to be. All of our laws need to be looked at through this lens: Do they cause the population to rise or fall? Do they encourage growth or limit its dangerous path?

Imagine a world which begins wildlife policies with this phrase:

 “We the undersigned acknowledge that our limited planet is bursting at the seams with humans. To continue to promote our growth as a top of the food chain mammal with our laws and policies, is to ensure our own demise as well as the extinction of plants an animal species on which we depend. To continue to ignore human population growth as the engine which drives the extinction train is to sign up for failure.”

Each country has its own unique resources, cultures, religions, and laws. It is virtually impossible to infuse the same de-growth laws worldwide. In order to save species and to save ourselves, each country must first assess its resources of water, energy and material goods and social services. Each nation must then determine how much it is growing, and how it is happening then implement the appropriate laws which with curb growth as humanely as possible, remembering that nature is anything but humane. Starvation, flooding, disease, wildfires are all on the menu in a world which refuses to see that humans have exceeded their carrying capacity on Planet Earth.

If total fertility rates are mainly to blame for increasing numbers, they must be encouraged to come down. Among degrowth based laws which would curb fertility: incentives for small families, more support for senior citizens who won’t need large families to take care of them, free access to birth control, more supportive and cheaper foster care and easier adoptions. There also needs to be consistent civil discussion about our imminent ecological collapse.

If immigration mainly to blame for forcing numbers up, like it is in the US, they must be tamed with more restrictive laws that are humanely enforced. Responsibly controlled borders must be a part of a formula for a nation if it wants its wildlife to survive the pressures of ecological collapse. Macro thinking is required if our natural places are to remain free from the footprints of newcomers who are not to be mistreated but need to be restrained with laws like E-verify* which are federally voluntary but are begging to required by more states. Temporary visas for educational opportunities must be just that, temporary.

These discussions can no longer afford to be sidetracked by accusations of racism. It is a flimsy avoidance strategy of a monumental degree. History has proven that descendants of slaves are relegated to the back of the hiring line every time we have a wave of immigrants come into the US. (See: Back of the Hiring Line by Roy Beck 2021). Because Black Americans in border states have recently added their voices to the protests of the uncontrolled stream of immigrants, it begs the question, how can racism be the reason for wanting responsibly controlled borders? Allowing populations to grow with either laws and customs which encourage either high fertility rates or immigration is asking for extinction to exhilarate no matter how many wildlife acts are on the books.

If wildlife were able to hire the best lawyers and sue us for allowing growth and sprawl destroy their habitat I for one would want to be on that jury and vote for the plaintiff.

*“is an Internet-based system that compares information entered by an employer from an employee’s Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to records available to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to confirm employment eligibility.”

When Growth Surges and Storm Surges Meet By Karen I. Shragg

Of the 1.8 million homes in the nine counties declared a disaster area, in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian only 29% have federal flood insurance (Politico). Flooding is never covered by homeowner’s insurance. So those who can’t afford to buy flood insurance, or just didn’t buy it, will now be further down the rabbit hole of poverty and homelessness.

Florida keeps growing right in the pathway of storms which are guaranteed to keep getting more frequent and stronger in light of our continued fueling of the fires of climate change. So where do you put 3 million new residents who moved to Florida just since 2010? You put them in danger. You put them in the pathways of storms then make the lame effort of telling its growing millions to just evacuate, when radar indicates, on one of Florida’s only 4 major highways. Getting behind a moratorium on growth would show great leadership and foresight and help Floridians tremendously, but developers don’t donate to those kinds of leaders which are nowhere to be found these days.

Our corporate funded growth-based world has a great track record of ignoring the interface of population growth and climate disasters. Climate prediction maps are disturbingly clear, Tampa will become the new Miami in the not-so-distant future, some say by 2060.  Even though we know Miami will become a fancy underwater park as oceans rise, real estate developers are still on the prowl. I first went to Miami in 1964 when its population was just over 1.6 million. It is now still growing at over 6 million. Water is already threatening the water supply of Dade County. The intrusion of saltwater into their shallow aquifers began when the Everglades were drained to provide dry land for development, another human created disaster by our addiction to growth.

Population growth in Florida is mostly a combination of migration from other states, and both legal and illegal migration from other countries. Stopping growth in from all of its sources is called for and can only happen when we can see that it is a self-destructive journey, like welcoming gasoline to a fire.

If insurance companies were in the business of really helping people, they would become major underwriters of population NGO’s. They would save money in the long run and could help fund getting the message out which is well documented: when you keep growing and building homes in a state subject to storms in our climate altered world you are asking for even more costly disasters. This full disclosure should be required on all Florida brochures: 22 million people are already crammed into our 65,758 square miles of sinking swampland. Since we also live in a world of dangerous climate change and its ever violent storms, we are sorry, but we are full. Adding more growth to our state, from whatever source, is as dangerous as being in the target of the next storm.

D.A.R.E. to Have Difficult Discussions On Taming the Overpopulation Beast

“A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.” Garrett Hardin

We now live in a world that is so polarized that it’s hard to navigate complex issues with tools of nuance and well-established evidence. It is even more challenging to have difficult discussions when we can all live in our own ‘news’ bubbles and miss out on the kind of truth which is always more complicated than presented on bumper stickers and sound bites.

It is an either/or landscape and rarely a narrative that can accommodate two seemingly opposing truths. We want to know if something or someone is good or bad and the answer is often YES. As Ken Burns in this latest documentary, “The US and the Holocaust” articulated, some of our most favored heroes were also virulent antisemites.

Fortunately, several thought leaders are trying to carve out a new way forward. Andrew Yang and Christy Todd Whitman have actually formed a political party called ‘Forward’, trying to chip away at the entrenched two-party system with more moderate views. Author and podcaster Sam Harris suggests we discard the duality of the right and the left framework and create what he calls the “Radical Center.” In 2017 Harris posted a definition of Radical Centrism on Reddit, “Being a Radical Centrist is not about hitting the middle of both sides. It's about being open to ideas from either side and not wasting time with unpractical discussions… The "radical" in the term refers to a willingness on the part of most radical centrists to call for fundamental reform of institutions. The "centrism" refers to a belief that genuine solutions require realism and pragmatism, not just idealism and emotion. Thus, one radical centrist text defines radical centrism as "idealism without illusions.” 

It is time to bring this concept to the overpopulation beast. We are all victims of overpopulation’s reach, every single one of the 8 billion we are just about ready to ‘welcome’ to our rapidly overheating planet. We all suffer because of our numerical success. Whether you have to walk more miles to access fresh water or spend much of your week in a traffic jam, we experience overpopulation’s wrath every day and it’s just getting warmed up, literally. The more people, the more carbon and we are learning to recognize climate’s calling cards in the reports of melting of glaciers, rising oceans and longer and longer wildfire seasons.

Human rights, especially for those with the least resources and respect, is also vital for a world that is worth occupying. Each person no matter their ethnicity needs to have his/her humanity respected. Hatred of the other, based on made up nonsense of inferiority has no place in a world I want to live in. So how do we reconcile these two truths? As individuals we need respect but as a whole, our species is just too big. We have become a force which acts like a bulldozer, mowing down forests and creating pollution in our wake. We begin this arduous task by unbolting the doors to difficult discussions. We elevate the significance of ecological understanding through an ethical lens with no hatred in our hearts.

To even mention the word population is to raise concerns and accusations of racism from the fringe on the left. In contrast, those on the right chomp at the bit to advocate for more border control to support their despicable supremacist diatribes. As I wrote in a piece last year; “The Right drives me nuts and the Left Drives Me Crazy.” Mention how we mostly grow in the US and other developed countries immigration, and watch the doors close to all but xenophobic discussions, leaving me politically homeless.

That is why I am creating a new acronym for myself. I am calling myself a D.A.R.E. activist. That stands for Degrowth Anti-Racist Environmentalist. I am not an advocate that we de-grow the human enterprise because I hate people, I am an advocate for lower population numbers because I love people. I am not against immigrants; I am for them. I want tightly controlled borders not because I hate those desperate to come here, but because I love them, empathize, and understand their predicament. BUT at the same time, I also realize that the US has its limits especially in a climate changing world. To invite people into your home you had better be prepared to give them all that they need. We can no longer guarantee there will be an America left when we go so far over our carrying capacity, especially our water supply. I can sympathize with all wanting to come here, recognize the way many have even been victims of US policies and still want to control the number of people let into a country with ailing economic and ecological systems. We can look to finance more home-grown solutions. I also love those citizens who have been struggling for years in the US and adore the natural landscapes we still have left, without any bigotry towards those who are knocking on our doors. As a D.A.R.E. activist I can straddle that fine line because to do anything else is to give in to either the jaws of hatred or the poison of creating further ecological and economic instability. Neither choice is acceptable to me. 

I would love to have the power to bring women’s empowerment to country’s lacking in awareness and birth control like the NGO Population Media Center is doing all over the world. Bringing down fertility rates also must happen in humane and voluntary ways. Nature is already aggressively ruthless when large families try to eke out a living in water and food deprived landscapes, our solutions cannot add to that ruthlessness. Those solutions must be discussed with all consequences on the table. The forecasted growth in the US, now topping 333 million, is not due as much to high fertility as it is to high immigration rates. Something, theoretically at least, much simpler to solve. Solutions start at home whether we are trying to fix potholes as Garrett Hardin talked about or population growth. While I am busy inventing acronyms, I have one more. In the name of all that is sacred, water, land, freedom, job security, wildlife, lower crime rates, less homelessness and more, we must become “H.E.R.B.alists ‘too. That is, we must rally to demand Humanely and Ecologically Restrained Borders. When we recognize that taming the overpopulation beast must be done where and when we can, and without an ounce of hatred in our hearts we will be on the right track, the one that runs right down the middle.

Thanks for Saving the Wolves : an Open Letter to Population Groups unafraid of addressing HOW we grow.

Dear Population NGO unafraid of addressing Immigration as the way the US population is mostly growing and is forecasted to grow ( Fill in the blank)

My enclosed donation is to thank you for saving the wolves. No that is not a typo. You see I was recently canceled from presenting my talk at the International Wolf Symposium (IWS). I was poised to methodically and with supportive research demonstrate how US population growth is harming the future of these amazing mammals. The word apparently got out that I was going to point a well-deserved, humanely articulated finger at the main reason the US is growing so fast, our outdated and unsustainable mass immigration policies, and afraid that I would offend some people, they declined to allow me to speak at their conference in Minnesota this October. I offered to let them put a disclaimer on the door after watching my new and improved talk now called, “Sprawling Over America, Why the endangered Species Act isn’t enough.” But due to my principles, I would not agree to alter my talk unless it was for scientific reasons. The verdict came back from one irate board member in particular, I am told, that I was not to even say the word ‘immigration. I asked for my registration fee back, especially when they could not be troubled to see my improvements in the latest rendition of my presentation. I am using that refund to make donations to fine NGOs like you who are doing more to save the wolf than this group. They say they love them, promote studying them and fill their website with great photos of them but stop at doing what would really help them, humanely keep our increasing footprints from encroaching on their territory. I claim that there can be no diversity in a world which tramples on biodiversity.

A wolf pack territory averages about 50-60 square miles, depending on prey density. According to the head of the IWS who had to break the news to me, there is no more room to release wolves in the lower 48.  In my talk I address why that is, but overpopulation, population growth and for sure immigration, the main cause for our continued growth, are now not only taboo topics they are taboo words. I feel sorry for the wolves which not only have suffered over the years from negative mythology and the effects of climate change but from the last nail in their coffin, political wokeness and cancel culture. I know that you will spend my donation well and continue to press for awareness on how unsustainable our overpopulated country is both for us and wildlife. I know many in the IWS agree with my research, but until they find their collective spine and allow the truth to be told about overpopulation and growth, I will continue to spread the word where I am allowed, which is getting more and more difficult to do.

With thanks for your courageous work,

Dr. Karen I. Shragg

Sole proprietor of MUSEC, MoveUpstream Environmental Consultants, Board Member of (SEPS) Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization, Board Member of CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) Advisory board member of Earth Overshoot.

I Am the Walrus* The Impact of Short-term Thinking in a Long-term World

The story goes that John Lennon wrote the words to the weirdest song ever, “I am the Walrus,” in protest to the way everyone was trying to attach meaning to Beatle lyrics back in the day. I found meaning in this intentionally meaningless song, when I heard about the fate of Freya the walrus in Norway. She had to be put to death when warnings of staying away from her went unheeded. I am the walrus, and I am crying because we keep treating wildlife with the kind of curiosity that often ends up killing them. Could this 1300-pound walrus have been relocated? Perhaps, but only with great expense and trauma with no promise she would have survived the move.

It reminded me of the efforts I was involved in for decades as a nature center director to get people to leave wildlife alone. They fed deer, ‘rescued’ rabbits, birds, and squirrels because they had a twisted relationship with nature. I have always admired and shared the love of wildlife that these actions represented at their core. But like so many human actions, they represented tunnel vision about the long-term results of their actions. Save an English sparrow and watch it destroy bluebird nests. Rescue a goldfish by releasing it in a marsh and witness the annihilation of the whole ecosystem. The most vivid story I can remember involves the forbidden hand feeding of Canada geese which got so tame they lost their natural fear of people paving the way for teenage boys to hand spear them to death one morbid afternoon. Those families who brought leftover bread to hand feed these beautiful birds had no thought as to the way the bread effected their health or how it artificially raises their numbers. They certainly never considered that by feeding the geese they were sentencing them to death. The lesson here is that we must stop acting in the way that feels good in the moment without considering the long-term result.

Just about everything about the state of our environment fits into the narrative that short term desires often result in long tern ecological pain. It feels good to buy something brand new and not consider the resources it took to make it or the overflowing landfills where it will end up. When you are thirsty a drink that comes in a ubiquitous plastic one-use bottle is refreshing. Few think that 1,000 people are doing that every second in the US resulting in 500 billion bottles that will have a heinous second life polluting our land, ground water and oceans.

It seems fair in the moment to put out a welcome mat on our southern border and to those around the world in need of a better life or just more opportunities today, but the impact of an increased demand for housing, jobs, and healthcare on our already stressed country is as delusional as it is ignored. Sharing one’s wealth is admirable but there is no wealth to be found in today’s US. Our rivers are running dry, our health care systems are failing, and the open space that serves wildlife and the water cycle is being gobbled up by our continued population pressures. The figures are astonishing. America lost 17,800 square miles of open space to population pressure and its resulting development between 2002 and 2017, according to a study released by NumbersUSA.

But my experience is that figures do not matter when we refuse to adopt an ethic of long-term thinking. We must open our eyes to the misery our short term, feel-good thinking and behavior is causing and will create in the future. Feeding white tail deer will increase their population so that they will be hit by cars and require them to be culled, a kind word for killing. Welcoming more Americans to our bare table is not an act of kindness when it will result in more misery and suffering in the long run. It is analogous to those who enjoyed photographing Freya, the popular walrus which condemned her to death. It all makes about as much sense as the lyrics, “I am the egg man, I am the egg man, they are the egg men, I am the walrus Goo goo g'joob.”

Tiger Lily Magic

On this tiger lily morning

Of a black cherry day

as late-nesting goldfinches

camouflage in towering cup plants,

Nature announced the time of year

for anyone able

to read its low-cost calendar.

I gleefully absorbed the orange and yellows

of its delicious summer pallet

wishing July had permission to linger

like snowdrifts on a future winter’s day.

Dragonflies announced their welcomed presence in silent pride

of the miles logged on their see-through wings.

I directed my garden hose at the cumulus-dotted sky

and watered rainbows with a gentle spray

while robins neared, hopeful

that a worm or two would surface.

Cardinals announced their ruby triumphance

from my great smoke tree

refusing to let the woodpeckers dominate the day’s cacophony.

Bumblebees acknowledged their satisfaction

with choices of native blooms

By showing off pollen-laden legs

as dwarfing swallowtails swooped in

on their territory.

The unfolding drama

nourished my heart

replenished my senses

and filled me with gratitude

for figuring out long ago

that we need to be more like Muir,

Behave as if we lived at Waldon Pond

with Thoreau peering over our shoulders

if we want a life far more satisfying

then whatever awaits us

on our phones.

Confessions of a Growth-A-Phobe

Does the sight of a large bulldozer send shivers down your spine? Does your heart skip a beat when you see that new high-rise popping up in your neighborhood? Do the traffic increases that can’t be explained away by construction zones and accidents give you sleepless nights? Do you feel nauseous at ribbon cutting ceremonies? Then you just might be a Growth-a-Phobe. I know I suffer from GAP. I am deeply fearful of our runaway human numbers and our love affair with growing our cities and sprawling over land which used to be for wildlife.

According to a quick Internet search, A phobia is “an overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal.” “Phobias are more pronounced than fears. They develop when a person has an exaggerated or unrealistic sense of danger about a situation or object.” Most phobias harm just the individual and their immediate families. Deep fear often causes them to become reclusive. Some, as in homophobia, have the power to harm entire groups of innocent people and should be shunned. The only thing incorrect about being growthphobic is that the sense of danger is very real and dangerous to all living things.

Growth, as the writer Edward Abbey once said, is the philosophy of a cancer cell. Growth, love of growth, promotion of growth in America has set us up for doing just that, and we have become a parasite eating our host. It is a narrative that ties new, bigger, shinier, and better to progress. Politicians run on the promise of new growth. At the promise of new malls, wider freeways, bigger downtowns, new dams for our rivers, we all run, well maybe walk, to the ballot box to usher in their power to take our tax dollars and steal from the earth. It is a story that doesn’t end well and until more catch the GAP, those of us who have it will wake up each day in more and more frustration.

All construction, all technology, all additional people take resources which are polluting during extraction, use and disposal. The earth has become a dumping ground for both our needs and our insatiable desire for new toys. Nature does have the ability to recycle some waste and renew with regrowth but not at our rate of consumption and not at the size of our population. Those two are inseparable and the time is overdue for debating which is worse. In the process of becoming the force of 8 billion, and still growing by 80 million/year, we are also raising the temperature of the earth. In 2022 our carbon rate is still growing at 412 ppm (parts per million) a level of carbon so high we are becoming an inferno of heat, drought and wildfires creating great instability in our food and water supplies.

Still we haven’t changed our tune. Some of our leaders and the big polluters who fund them still deny the very possibility that all of the exhausts from our vehicles and factories trapped in our atmosphere since the 1800’s are to blame for climate change. Our leaders and their minions still operate within the cult of infinite growth as though there will be no price to pay. Growth of our numbers is so silenced by the powers that be, that people are shocked when they hear how quickly our population has exploded. When I tell them that when my parents were born we had less that 3 billion people on earth and only 106 million people in the US, it seems impossible that our species with all of our wars, diseases and maladies could take over the planet so quickly.

Money and power are as addictive as heroin and crack cocaine and just as dangerous. Although many, like Herman Daly who recently wrote in the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/18/magazine/herman-daly-interview.html  have offered alternatives to growth in his steady state economy proposal years ago, few are listening. They are sent to the back of the room, swept under the rug by those who worship their portfolios and just can’t see a way forward under a de-growth scenario. They can’t fathom that water is more valuable than a vault full of gold.

Commercials let us know that Wall Street wants us to keep shopping with their offers 0 % financing for shiny new SUV’s, and the latest smart phones go on sale and their salivating customers prove they are becoming smarter than us. Offered in a myriad of new colors they sell us on the notion that the newest phones must be purchased immediately if we are to be on top of the newest technology. When the resources they consume and the pollution they cause are an environmental travesty. https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/environment/the-hidden-environmental-toll-of-smartphones/

Solutions to curbing our growth addiction have been readily available for decades. But endless bickering has been throwing a monkey wrench into much needed intelligent and biosphere- focused conversations. Fingers are pointed back and forth between the rich and poor countries, when all are harmed by growing human numbers and their demands on limited resources.

I witnessed this in the 28 years I was in charge of a small 150-acre nature center surrounded by a growing urban area. Every time a high-rise went up across the street or a lane was added to our bordering freeway, our wetland had to take on the extra storm water.

I stood firm on not allowing deep holes to be dug in our prairie, and pointed out the fallacy of thinking we could keep taking on more and more acres in our watershed without consequences. In spite of my efforts, over 2,000 acres were added over the years, and the center’s 3 miles of trails kept flooding especially on high rainfall years. It was my initiation into the downsides of growth. There was no full cost accounting of the development projects, especially the federal funding of freeway ‘improvements’. Oh, they would throw a few dollars our way but was never enough to cover the long-term costs of the damage done by growths evil ways.

There are three basic solutions which must be worked on simultaneously and in each and every country, developed or developing. 1) Work towards a steady state economy, (see https://steadystate.org/ .2) Strive for normalizing small families and providing accessible reproductive health care  and education for women (see any number of NGO’s like population media center https://www.populationmedia.org and https://fairstartmovement.org/  3) and working on the policies which would address the sustainable limits to mass immigration (see www.numbersusa.com  and Sustainable Population Australia  https://population.org.au/) for this is the fastest way to stop localized, country based growth in its tracks. But these answers which have proven track records in several countries are thrown under the bus because we continue to be married to our toxic growth story and get mired down in downstream distractions and accusations of injustice.

When our global culture, led by the developed world, believes in the infinity of resources and the glory of growth, there is no need to even try these solutions on for size. Just imagine if de-growthers were in charge, we would get busy taking our foot off the growth pedal and working to align our demands with the capacity of the earth to support us. Just think of the resources we would save, the wild animals who could still have a chance and the human suffering we would prevent not to mention money we would save in red ribbons. I wrote extensively about the need to change our narratives in my latest book from Freethought House Press, Change Our Stories Change Our World (2019) But I did specifically suggest just how we go about poking holes in our unsustainable stories. So how do we proceed from a growth-based GNP overpopulated world which operates on an unsustainable scale to one that heads us in a direction of less?

To do this I think we need to take a page out of two books, full of adaptable advice. Woke Racism, How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America (2021) by John McWorter and How to Have Impossible Conversations by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay (2019). These authors roll up their sleeves and encourage us to take on dominant narratives. McWorter profoundly states, “There is room in society for speaking the truth and living to tell about it.” He gives many examples of where we can say no to the dominant forces and come out ahead. What do Chicago, New York City and Hawaii all have in common? They have all said no to allowing Walmart to come in using a variety of legal strategies. Growth and its negative impacts are not inevitable, but they do take a lot of energy to fight.

When I read the Impossible Conversations book, I immediately thought it had value in showing us how to decouple our world from the growth train. Their advice would be to address growth-based belief system believers respectfully and with deep concern. Those who are promoting growth really do believe they are making the world a better place. It our task to break open that story and expose it for the ecological nightmare that it is. We have to have this seemingly impossible conversation with our leaders and the media. In order to intervene in the growth narrative, Boghossian/Lindsay invite us to poke holes in their story by asking direct questions about their beliefs and then ask them at to put their opinions on a scale of how much they believe their convictions. Then the next key question is to ask; What would it take for you to change your beliefs? What kind of evidence would be convincing enough for you to consider changing your mind?

An example directed at city leaders might look like this: Do you believe that the new development in our city will make an improvement in our lives when completed? How will traffic and water consumption be impacted? Are you aware that we are already water stressed? On a scale of 1-10 how strongly do you believe that this project will benefit our city 5 years from now? If they say anything less than 10 there is room for then asking, what kind of evidence would you accept as proof that embracing growth is harmful to our city? It shouldn’t be too difficult from there to provide any number of statistics to demonstrate the growth ship has sailed. https://www.numbersusa.com/msp/numbersusa-sprawl-studies

It sounds cruel, but we truly do need more growth phobic people in our country and the world. I wish I could spread it by not wearing a mask for it is the one phobia which, if acted upon, could help bring us back from the brink of disaster. The only other healthy phobia I would like to infect us with is my phobia of assault weapons, but that is for another essay.

For Your Consideration: To be Anti-Growth is to be Pro-Humanity

For too many years unjustified accusations have flown at those of us who have been beating the overpopulation drum. At best we are told we only care about trees and wildlife at the expense of human rights at worst we are labeled racists and just plain anti-human. This is an expedient way to shut down a much-needed conversation, avoid the truth and any hope of solving what is behind our booming environmental crisis.

Just label the ecologically aware as unfair to the poor and marginalized and you don’t have to pay attention to what they (we) are saying. As Dana Carvey’s Church Lady character would say, “Isn’t that special!” or more appropriately, “How conveeeenient”. If our intentions as overpopulation activists are deemed nefarious, no one has to listen or accept blame for things going south so quickly. The truth is, If we truly were anti-human and racist our best approach to this issue would be to remain silent and just watch the collapse of all we hold dear progress.

Paraphrasing Isaac Asimov, the overpopulation issue operates under its own weather system and is so detrimental to humanity that the best way to keep it on track to wipe us and our fellow creatures out is to do nothing. He points out that at least with nuclear war we have to do something. We are very busy doing nothing, and even busier making up reasons why we can’t have decent, effective policies, many of which have been in the pipeline for a long time.

Without ecologically and morally justifiable laws in place to keep us in balance with the resources needed to survive, we will continue to grow to such an outrageous population size that conservation efforts will become increasingly ridiculous. We keep telling the public to be sure to wash out their peanut butter jars and shop with reusable bags, meanwhile we add over 200,000 new customers net gain to Mother Earth’s limited store each day.

In the US it is becoming ‘green’ window dressing to put in community gardens and roadside wildflowers, while we put out the red carpet for thousands of new residents to our shiny, new government subsidized apartment units. While we smile at ribbon cutting ceremonies these relocated earth customers will be in the process of draining our already stressed aquifers and adding to our traffic jams. We have alternate days for watering lawns in place while encouraging the addition of hundreds of new residents each year in arid, drought stressed states who will be needing 82 gallons of fresh water per day just to live a decent modern life. We must be locally sustainable before we can ever hope to be globally so.

The time is overdue to call out these social justice warriors. I would mention them by name but not only are they growing in numbers it is their story I am trying to poke holes their story. Anyone who is alarmed at the growth rates of our population which is mainly due to mass immigration is NOT I repeat, NOT an automatic white supremacist.

If you want to help mankind, and prevent suffering, misery, and early death of humans you can do many things. You can be against the death penalty, pedophilia, sex trafficking, the sale of assault weapons to the public and the promotion of illicit drugs. You can question the ease with which we go to war with no game plan for ending the invasions of sovereign nations. All these positions reflect my deeply held values. How is it that I can I suddenly become anti-human by promoting the idea that overpopulation is killing our future? I can’t because I am not. I am the opposite of a racist. I am not the enemy of all things human. Overpopulation causes ecocide, which is an umbrella incorporated the ills of genocide. It is the unnamed, unblamed enemy of our present and future. It stresses resources, eliminates pollinators, adds to our carbon footprint, creates traffic, obliterates our scenic views, and overcrowds our cities and parks. Trying to prevent this collective tragedy is nothing but noble.

We have all seen the photos of trains in India so overstuffed with passengers that over 33,000 people are killed each year just by falling overboard. Do we think we will somehow be protected from their fate in the developed world? If you have been around for a few, you have already witnessed the diminished quality of life brought about by overpopulation. More crowds, more pollution, more anonymity, less community, and more crime are all the result of the US population growing beyond the carrying capacity of our precious and irreplaceable resources including our now mythological wide-open spaces. The real finger pointing should be at those selling the fallacies that the US is limitless with much to offer newcomers. Decay is all that lies ahead for a country unwilling to put its ecological foot down. Yes, we indeed may owe certain groups a lifeline because of our past or even current unfair and even evil acts, but we cannot offer up our country’s future as penance. That lifeline needs to be in more sustainable forms. Once we recognize that the US cannot be the release valve for the hundreds of millions who would like to come here, there are endless possibilities for being helpful. For instance, we could send in teams of health care providers and educators to help relieve women saddled with the burden of having to provide for unsustainable numbers of children. We could try to negotiate with leaders attaching trade policies to lowered fertility rates.

An article in the Journal of Future Studies, (Sept. 2020, 25(1): 93–106) addressed the motivations of those advocating to take our foot off the growth pedal. “Environmental scientists and scholars who point out the danger of overpopulation do so for two key reasons. The first is that this is causing ecocide and the extinction of life on Earth. The second is that the first reason is likely to lead to famine and war, and the major loss of human population….Thus, talking about overpopulation is not anti-human but pro-human. Population activism seeks to avoid mega-death (both human and nonhuman). Similarly, it wishes to avoid a situation where international conflict and war are increased. The ‘anti-human’ claim thus has no evidence or logic to support it.”

In my 2015 book, Move Upstream, A Call to Solve Overpopulation, Freethought House Press, I invited people to consider the big picture. I did not tell them to leave their values behind, but to accomplish them with a wider vision. An upstream view is to see not only what we are doing but why we are doing it. If I didn’t care about the biodiversity of this planet and its capacity to support us, I would take the George Carlin approach. I would get a lawn chair and make a big bag of popcorn and just watch the circling of the drain. I would nod my head and say to whomever wanted to listen, “What did you expect when we add millions each year to a country which already can’t manage to provide for its citizens?” I do deeply care about this planet and its creatures and so do my fellow overpopulation activists. I am ready to go to the mat to challenge those who cannot see beyond their limited worldview. When their narrative of shame is examined through the lens of sustainability it becomes tarnished and is not just damaging to activists but to the future of those they think they are trying to protect.

Overpopulation activists must address growth in all of its forms, both locally and globally. Growth is cultivated by high fertility rates and lack of women’s empowerment, immigration policies and capitalism which is increasingly better referred to as oligarchic capitalism due to the way in which a handful of billionaires are running the country’s economic policies. Those who claim to have a stake in the social justice of the most vulnerable would do well to take a few ecology courses and see that they are setting up a house of cards which is destined to collapse and fall hardest on those with the least resiliency.

Tiny Tombstones a Poem for These Times

Tiny Tombstones by Karen I. Shragg

Tiny tombstones dot the landscape

But I refuse to be numb

There isn’t enough granite in the world

To make room for my grief I must experience anew

With enough disgust and embarrassment for good measure.

The dash between their years inexcusably close together.

They weren’t allowed to live long enough to have done much

But break our hearts at their sudden annihilation,

woven into our now common, eerie tapestry

We have to own and quit denying

That our finger of inaction was on the trigger too.

Each murderous thread woven with our love affair with guns

and the elevation of the 2nd amendment beyond its intentions.

Teachers who signed up only for low pay and long hours

forced to be heroes by those who offer them more weapons as a patronizing answer that will only keep lining the pockets of those whose blood-stained hands cannot be washed clean with platitudes of thoughts and prayers.

Whose deaf ears refuse to respond to those who scream to sign up for the real solutions already in the pipeline from countries

Whose leaders aren’t funded by the weapon salesmen

Whose guilt hasn’t found an escape hatch

Paved with self-righteousness and twisted Christian values

Just to keep their party in power

At the price of keeping the orders coming in

for more tiny tombstones.