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‘We will eventually be culled by the earth’

Editor, The News:

Re: The world will shake us off like fleas (Letters, Feb. 9).

I read this letter by Jeff Chenatte and the contrasting one before it by Dan Banov (The world really is a better place, Feb. 4)

Both writers see the world through their own eye-of-the-beholder opinions. I seem to think that the world is fine, but our world has never been worse off.  

There is one pressing issue that will doom us humans.  It is not global warming.  It isn’t poverty, human rights, or lack of food either.  These are not problems on their own.  They are symptoms of the main problem: overpopulation.  

Governments strive year after year for growth in GDP, population, tax income etc.  

Corporations do the same.  

The world economy relies on this growth and the only way this growth occurs is by population increase.  

Population increase puts pressures on natural resources, which one day could run out.  

Wars are fought over these resources. 

The one thing we, as humans, cannot seem to grasp is that there is no such thing as sustainable growth. Not anymore.

We have hit the tipping point. If we could keep the world population to certain, sustainable numbers, there would be enough for everyone. We could all live above the poverty line, with enough food and clean water to keep us alive.

 Human rights, resources, and lives would not need to be squandered in the interest of more growth, and therefore more people.  

We have been bred to believe that growth is good, and the only solution.  

But if a cancerous tumor grows unchecked, that’s not such a good thing.  

I am not naive enough to believe that we will realize this and begin to curb our own growth, or even allow for decline as is needed.  

We will eventually be culled by the earth. We will be shaken like fleas. We will one day, through every fault of our own, be decimated to sustainable populations.  

Then, we will try to continue the cycle again.  

The best explanation I can offer is taken from Jurassic Park, the movie. One of the scientists states that humans are not, in fact, killing the earth. The earth will stand for billions of years. We are simply killing ourselves.

Something will one day replace us as we have replaced so many species before and thrive in the conditions that we humans created and, ultimately, could not survive in.

Darren van Leeuwen

Maple Ridge