Dear David,
 
Because we are neighbors and there is a matter of personal concern to me, I am contacting you on this occasion at your home address.  This letter is copied to your office in Washington, DC. 
 
In our time, the USA is a leader of the international community of nations comprising the family of humanity.  This worldwide family is confronted with numerous looming economic challenges and formidable ecological threats.  Of all challenges to human well being and environmental health, there may be no threat so large and oppressive as the one presented to humankind by the projected unbridled growth of absolute global population numbers in the first half of Century XXI.
 
President Barack Obama has made a commitment to rely on the best available scientific evidence in policymaking and action planning rather than be guided by preternatural theories, ideologically-biased factoids, purely political convenience and excessive attention to economic expediency.
 
With these circumstances in mind, I have joined the “Global Population Speak Out” Project (gpso.wordpress.com).  This project is featured in Science Magazine (Science Volume 322, Issue 5902 p. 655 “Return of the Population Bomb”).  People from around the world have pledged to speak out loudly and clearly about the challenges that could soon be presented to the world by the skyrocketing increase of human population numbers on Earth.  My project is a simple, straightforward one: to send you this letter.  As my Congressman and a respected scientist, I am asking you to consider revolutionary scientific evidence that appears to advance our understanding of human population dynamics.  A 30 minute presentation of this research by an outstanding scientist from Chapel Hill (and a colleague of yours at Duke University) can be reviewed at the following link (www.panearth.org).  At least to me, the evidence in the presentation by Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D., “World Food and Human Population Growth,” has potentially profound implications.
 
If it pleases you to do so, examine the evidence.
 
Thanks for the great work you have been doing over many years for the citizens of Chapel Hill and the 4th Congressional District as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
 
Sincerely,
 
Steve
 

Click to view Hopfenberg’s presentation

We’ve been watching the planetary population clock for years. In some ways 300 million humans is just one more number, one more statistic, one more blip on a screen that has a lot of troubling information to display.

In one way this offers us an opportunity, however, and we’re glad for that. This is an opportunity for popular media to focus attention on human population and its consequences for the quality of human life.

Our growing human population now affects our entire planet, our entire global ecology, all of the ecosystems that keep us alive and healthy. Unfortunately the quality of life that many of those 300 million Americans enjoy now cannot be sustained much longer.

This is an opportunity for us to think about the quality of life we want for our children and our grandchildren. This is an opportunity for us to think hard about the consequences of the decisions we make now. What do we need to do now, today, to ensure the quality of life we want for our children? What do we need to do today to ensure the quality of life we want for our grandchildren in days to come?

Alex de Sherbinin, at Earth & Sky, comments:

One of the things that I think needs to be addressed and thought about, in the context of America turning the clock to 300 million, is our global impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, energy, materials usage, a whole range of things.

I’m hoping that what we can do as a society is … see these as opportunities to come up with novel solutions such as more fuel efficient transport systems. We’re a nation that prides itself on innovation.

Thanks for taking the time to think about this. Let’s keep thinking, shall we? Let’s keep thinking about the ways we can ensure a decent quality of life for our children and grandchildren.

For decades now, demographers and economists have warned that the number of people on earth is growing too fast to be “sustainable.” But for many, this story is somewhat old, perhaps alarmist.

“We have sort of a cornucopia fantasy,” says Russell Hopfenberg, a consulting faculty member at Duke University in Durham, N.C. “People say, ‘Not to worry. Technology will solve the problem.’ ”

Mr. Hopfenberg isn’t so sure. “Don’t get lulled into complacency,” he says.

Read the rest of this article at the Christian Science Monitor web site…