Bill Clinton era operatives coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Now the phrase, “It’s overpopulation, stupid,” should be the watchword as we face an increasingly shaky future with our eyes tightly closed.

Right up front I’ll admit to xenophobic tendencies, but not in the normal sense. My passion is directed at excess population growth in all forms, whether it’s teens having kids, mature couples having more kids than their fair share, people breaking the law by shinnying under a southern border fence, or their predecessors already in the U.S. producing way too many offspring. Excess population exacerbates our vulnerabilities for the coming resource crunch. So, just what is the current state of population growth in the U.S.?  

A recent Fox News item:  

“The nearly 4.3 million U.S. births in 2006 were mostly due to a bigger population, especially a growing number of Hispanics. That group accounted for nearly one-quarter of all births. But non-Hispanic white women and other racial and ethnic groups were having more babies, too.

An Associated Press review of birth numbers dating to 1909 found the total number of U.S. births was the highest since 1961, near the end of the [post WWII] baby boom. An examination of global data also shows that the United States has a higher fertility rate than every country in continental Europe, as well as Australia, Canada and Japan. Fertility levels in those countries have been lower than the U.S. rate for several years, although some are on the rise, most notably in France.

Experts believe there is a mix of reasons: a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty.”

As an example of the myopia that exists on this subject, the following item appeared in a New York Times editorial in commemoration of the estimated U.S. population reaching 300 million this past year:

“In America, growth and vitality are the same thing. The engine of assimilation hums on, with immigrants’ children trading their mother tongues for teenage upspeak with clockwork regularity. Annoyingly brilliant young people, of which we have lots, keep coming up with world-upending ideas like Apple, Google and YouTube.

Our teeming immensity keeps us from going stale, and despite some people’s panic attacks, our population issues have mysterious ways of working themselves out. America has big problems, but it also has 300 million reasons to be hopeful.”

There is a mixed message here. On the one hand, what a warm and fuzzy, wonderful way to embrace societal suicide! Well, if not suicide, then at least the demise of one of the greatest standards of living the world has ever seen. The Pollyannaish author of the editorial above can only be looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses from the past. He/she sees our past accomplishments and tries to extrapolate a future of unending population and economic expansion as a basis for ever more grand accomplishments. But those rose-tinted glasses, it turns out, were a translucent ‘bottomless’ barrel of light crude petroleum. Now that translucence is perturbed by the appearance of an unexpected and real bottom shining through, with some disturbing daylight behind it.

Petroleum and other fossil fuels brought about the industry that has supported the vast expansion of population that led to the expansion of the world economy over the past 100 years. Without that energy base, or a substitute that is not in sight now or in the foreseeable future, the world economy is likely to decline. Even if energy sources are found/invented that would circumvent the loss of our petroleum base, so many other resources are in the throes of declining supply and heightening demand that our way of life is extremely likely to deteriorate over the coming decades.    

On the other hand, don’t get me wrong. I have deep admiration for accomplishments of the citizens of the U.S. and the world, both past and hopefully, in the future. I look forward to an expansion of technology and hope to contribute to it, most especially the intelligent green kind. There will be many heroes who bring society into the green future. But their success will rest on the shoulders of the ones who help put the brakes on the runaway population train instead of pressing the accelerator.

With the prospects of dramatic reductions in per capita resources, can this possibly be a time for the U.S. to embrace immigration, amnesty for illegal immigrants, or for that matter, the current baby boom in the U.S.? What are the indications that population is too high and growing at a time when we are heading into a period of resource scarcity and depletion? I looked over a few headlines of the first three weeks of 2008 from New York Times online. Many had indirect connections, but the ones I listed below have a rather direct correlation to expanding population and declining resources of the U.S. and of the world in general. I inserted editorial comments in [brackets] following many of them.

1/1/2008 Oil in North Dakota Brings Job Boom and Burdens
By MONICA DAVEY
Some hope the oil industry will prompt business and workers to return to the state, where the population peaked in 1930. [The general scarcity of oil creates economic boomlets when small pockets of it are found.]

1/1/2008 On a Remote Path to Cures
By ANDREW DOWNIE
Scouring remote regions for plants, oils and extracts can yield cures — and big profits — for pharmaceutical companies and indigenous tribes. [ Remote regions are virtually all that's left to explore. Prospectors are cashing in if they can. ]

1/2/2008 In the Land of Many Ifs
By PETER S. GOODMAN and VIKAS BAJAJ
Plunging housing prices and soaring oil costs have provoked gloomy talk of a possible recession. Yet the economy has kept growing. How much longer can the expansion carry on?

1/2/2008 Of Two Minds on Polar Bears
The plight of the polar bear calls into question the Bush administration’s unsustainable strategy of trying to drill its way to energy independence.

1/2/2008 What’s Your Consumption Factor?
By JARED DIAMOND
The world has serious consumption problems, but we can solve them if we choose to do so. [ Not as long as the voters make it profitable for politicians to promote consumption.]

1/5/2008 Bearing Up
By SARAH PALIN
I strongly believe that adding polar bears to the list under the Endangered Species Act is the wrong move at this time.

1/8/2008 Bush Admits Economy Faces Challenges
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
President Bush conceded that rising oil prices, the home mortgage crisis, and the weakening job market present new “economic challenges.”

1/8/2008 Nature Overrun
Owners of off-road vehicles are transforming some of America’s most sensitive public lands into their personal playgrounds. [ And will continue until voters stop making it profitable for politicians to cater to growing groups that would destroy our national heritage.]

1/9/2008 F.T.C. Asks if Carbon-Offset Money Is Well Spent
By LOUISE STORY
Corporations and shoppers in the United States spent more than $54 million in 2007 on carbon offset credits, but where exactly is that money going? [Political gerrymandering of green funds?]

1/10/2008 Monitoring Tools Help Cut Home Energy Use, Study Finds
By STEVE LOHR
Giving people the tools to monitor and adjust their electricity use lowers their bills and could reduce the need to build new power plants, according to a government study.

1/10/2008 Is Ethanol for Everybody?
By ROGER COHEN
Behind the buzz over Brazil’s cane-based ethanol production lurk enduring social problems.

[As in the U.S., food and fuel compete for the same bio-material.]

1/11/2008 Quote of the Day

"We bought it first, and then we thought about driving."
VINEET SHARMA, of India, on the six adults in his household who didn’t know how to operate their new car.  [ A billion Indians (and more than a billion Chinese) aspire to the standard of living the U.S. has. This is just some of the new global competition for oil and other resources.]

1/11/2008 Hot Prospect for Oil’s Big League
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
A huge underwater oil field discovered late last year has the potential to transform Brazil into a sizable exporter and win it a seat at the table of the world’s oil cartel. [ Brazil tilts the barrel and we get a small reprieve from that ominous sucking sound.]

1/11/2008 New Yorkers Paying More Than Ever to Keep Their Homes Warm This Winter
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Despite a relatively mild winter so far, New Yorkers are paying more than ever to heat their homes, largely because of a surge in the prices of oil and natural gas.

1/11/2008 The Comeback Continent
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The next time a politician tries to scare you with the European bogeyman, bear this in mind: Europe’s economy is doing O.K. (Could their overall lowered birthrate have anything to do with this?] 

1/13/2008 A Long-Dry California River Gets, and Gives, New Life
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Water is flowing in the Lower Owens River nearly 100 years after Los Angeles diverted the river into an aqueduct and sent it 200 miles south to slake its growing thirst. [ Sometimes it takes a village, sometimes it takes a lawsuit. Los Angeles lost in the short term, won some grateful neighbors. Water shortages remain critical.]

1/14/2008 Quote of the Day

"Life is better there. There are no fish in the sea here anymore."
ALE NODYE, a Senegalese fisherman yearning to immigrate to Europe.

1/15/2008 Quote of the Day

"Fish and chips used to be a poor man’s treat, but with the prices, it’s becoming a delicacy."
MARK MORRIS, a fishmonger in London.

1/15/2008 Europe’s Appetite for Seafood Propels Illegal Trade
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Europe’s dinner tables are increasingly supplied by global fishing fleets, which are depleting the world’s oceans.

[Think human pop, more to come,
Wow, twelve billion and some!
With species save one gone,
 Define success that dreadful dawn.]

1/15/2008 Europe May Ban Imports of Some Biofuel Crops
By JAMES KANTER
If approved, the law would prohibit the importation of fuels derived from crops grown on certain kinds of land — including forests, wetlands or grasslands. [It’s sad when the best efforts can only bandaid the symptoms of overpopulation.].

1/15/2008 Commodities’ Relentless Surge
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
A global boom in the cost of commodities, the staple ingredients of a modern economy, is entering its sixth year with no end in sight.

1/15/2008 Regulatory Games and the Polar Bear
Vice President Dick Cheney and his industry friends are not going to let the struggling polar bear stand in their way of locking up as many oil and gas leases as they can before the door hits them on the way out. [The George and Dick show has been extremely profitable for them and their oil patch friends.]

1/15/2008 Doctors Where They’re Needed
In many rural or poor urban areas there are far too few doctors to serve the community, and the problem is getting worse. [Noble efforts to help can only be overwhelmed by the next huge wave of births.]

1/15/2008 Our Fetid City
By ELENA FERRANTE
In Naples, Italy, the mountains of garbage seem the symbol of a cosmic rot. 

1/16/2008 Quote of the Day

"When you buy a box of Cheerios in New York and one in Champaign, Illinois, you know they are going to be the same. By shortening the genetic pool using clones, you can do a similar thing."
JON FISHER, president and owner of Prairie State Semen in Illinois, after the F.D.A. declared cloned animals safe for the food supply. [Will increasingly risky regulations on  food production practices be the order of the day as food shortages become more common?]

1/16/2008 Bush Prods Saudi Arabia on High Oil Prices
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The president urged OPEC to take into account the cost high oil prices were having on the American economy. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister appeared to rebuff the president’s appeal to consider the cost to the U.S. economy. [Hat in hand, whining. Not surprising considering we’ve squandered the past seven years with little effort to replace oil imports or to look ahead to the population/resource crunch.]

1/16/2008 Blue-Collar Jobs Disappear, Taking Families’ Way of Life Along
By ERIK ECKHOLM
In southeast Ohio, thousands of people who long had tough but sustainable lives are being wrenched into the working poor.

1/16/2008 The Other Nano
We wish that Ratan Tata would focus his talents on creating transportation that is both affordable and doesn’t emit ever more greenhouse gases. [ As the third world’s populations reach for higher standards of living, environmental concerns have fallen by the wayside.] 

1/17/2008 White House Exempts Navy From Sonar Ban, Angering Environmental Groups
By JESSE McKINLEY
The waiver exempts the Navy from the Coastal Zone Management Act, which allows states a voice in federal activities along their shores. The sonar is believed to harm whales. [More people in the world = more unrest = more military urgency = more wars = more degradation of the ecology. Peaceful policies can’t catch up with population pressures.]

1/18/2008 Legal Immigrants Facing a Longer Wait
By JULIA PRESTON
An unprecedented surge in immigration applications last summer means legal immigrants will have to wait much longer during the next two years to receive visas or naturalization papers. [Somehow, someway, our honorable politicians just have to figure out a way for the illegals already here to get in line for naturalization ahead of these aspirants who so naively stand in the legal line in their home countries.  Shame!] 

1/19/2008 An Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories
By KEITH BRADSHER
Across the globe, huge demand for biofuels has created tension between using land to produce fuel and using it for food. [Competition can only get worse as population grows and resources shrink.]

1/19/2008 The Immigrant Vote
The citizenship and voter registration drive in immigrant communities should be celebrated by both parties. [An example of changing demographics directly linked to population growth. Also an example of politicians who put growth of party ahead of health of the country by pushing for amnesty (despite the euphemisms harnessed to camouflage the word) for illegal aliens. ]

1/19/2008 Emergency Room Delays
The nation’s failure to provide health insurance for all Americans seems to be harming even many of those who do have health coverage. [My hospital emergency room seems to be clogged largely with illegal aliens, but I’m sure that’s just my xenophobic nature clouding my eyesight. Yet another example where border control and attrition due to enforcing the law would help legal citizens have access to scarce resources. ]

1/19/2008 Good Jobs Are Where the Money Is
By BOB HERBERT
Good jobs at good wages — lots of them, growing like flowers in a fertile field — is the absolutely essential basis for a thriving American economy. [Good jobs are often filled by legal immigrants on special work visas at lower pay when American citizens would take the job if it paid a living wage.]

1/21/2008 Until All the Fish Are Gone
It would be hard to frame the problem of overfishing more dramatically than two recent articles in The Times detailing the disastrous consequences of often illegal industrial fishing.

Does anyone besides me see a pattern? I suspect many do — but what to do about it? The problem falls into the category of “tyranny of the commons.” This is where permissible individual actions are in themselves not harmful, but in composite accumulation are harmful to all. The cure for it, short of coercion, is group pressure to limit the activity. Therefore, we can do something about it. We can stand up for policies and attitudes that tend to restrict or at least, not promote additional population growth and we can do this with friends, relatives, local, state and Federal politicians. Let everyone know our concerns and back up assertions with hard facts. Only if we become intimately involved will the disgrace of this problem be alleviated and the lives of succeeding generations be salvaged.    

© 2008 R. Leland Waldrip