 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dear Friend,
Whatever environmental or human suffering issue you talk about today, there is a population connection standing behind it.
If I may, I would like to tell you about that connection.
Then, later in this letter, I have some good news on how you can lend your voice to a major new initiative to strengthen the movement to save our environment -- and to help relieve human suffering.
But first, please let me introduce myself. I'm Sonny Fox of Sonny Fox Productions. (You may remember me as host of the TV show "Wonderama" years ago.)
Personally, I have a deep concern about our stewardship of the earth and our caring for the less fortunate. That's why I am Honorary Chair of the Board of Population Communications International.
It's evident the environment is being severely damaged by the impact of rapidly growing populations. For instance, the destruction of earth's tropical rain forests.
In Brazil, desperate people from overpopulated areas are moving by the thousands into the Amazon rain forest. There they use slash and burn techniques to create farmable land.
The soils of the region soon wash away, or bake into an untillable hardpan. So the people move deeper into the jungle. And the destructive cycle is repeated -- over and over.
In the Himalayan mountainsides of Nepal, excessive population growth has depleted their fuel for cooking and heating.
So what do the people do? They strip the hillsides of trees in their steadily widening search for firewood.
Torrential monsoon rains, without forest cover to hold them back, wash the soil off the mountainsides and descend upon Bangladesh in devastating floods.
And on it goes, with large and growing populations destroying the rain forests, and upsetting the ecological balance of the world. In Brazil. In The Philippines. In Indonesia. In Zaire.
Then there is the direct population connection with global warming and the greenhouse effect.
Recently, a study by two scientists, one at the American Museum of Natural History and the other from Queens College in New York, showed that the increase of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere has followed almost exactly the growth of the population over the last quarter century! The correlation of carbon dioxide to population size has been 99.89% -- virtually a one-to-one relationship!
One of the scientists stated:
". . . everyone must recognize that it is people and their activities which cause carbon dioxide. The only solution that will work is to control population growth."
The alarming fact is that the population threat to the environment is growing by the minute!
* The first billion took from the dawn of humanity until 1830;
* The second billion took only 100 years -- from 1830 to 1930;
* Three more billion arrived in the next 60 years; and
* The next billion will take only 11 years (yes, just 11 years!) -- unless there is a tremendous effort to slow world birthrates!
Population growth in developing countries around the world is creating a vicious circle for economic and social development of people who lack even the basics for a decent life. As governments attempt to establish a social infrastructure to get ahead, their efforts are pulled back or overwhelmed with more mouths to feed, more ill to care for, more hospitals and schools to build. Population growth is sapping the energy and resources of all good and caring individuals who want to move their people forward but who instead are held back -- or pushed back -- by a crushing wave of more and more people.
Sonny
Fox
Populaton Communications International
