"OVERPOPULATED" IS A MISNOMER, A MYTH....

...In the U.S., if you're talking about the human population. Often times we have heard on T.V. or other mainstream media that we humans are "overpopulated". This is supposed to imply that the ecological problem here on Earth is that there are just too many people, right? Wrong!!! Very wrong!! Why is it wrong? It is wrong because the ecological problem on earth is not that there are too many people. (If there's too many of anything, it's LIVESTOCK ANIMALS.) The ecological problem here on Earth is that PEOPLE either don't know how to live ecologically with the Earth or they don't have the POWER to live ecologically with the Earth, or some don't have the WILL to live ecologically with the Earth. That is the real ecological problem. OVERCONCENTRATED or OVERCROWDED would be more appropriate words to use to describe the human population situation. Here are some reasons why:

1) It implies that people need to move to a less populated or less concentrated area. Like out of the cities and unto existing farmland, where their food is coming from! Here is another reason we are not overpopulated: because there is enough food to feed us all, if we all were to eat a vegetarian diet! If there are people eating meat, well that means that there are lots of grain crops being grown just to feed livestock somewhere. Ecologically speaking, it would be much better and more organic to be living directly on land where our food is coming from.

2) The term overpopulation implies that there are simply too many people around. Therefore, what will we do? Kill off a certain number of people? Who will decide who will live and who will die? It doesn't sound very nice, does it? It sounds pretty scarey to me! And just WHO or WHAT is trying to scare us? The ones who control the mainstrean media are trying to keep us scared, because then they feel they can control us better, for their own economic gain!

3) Overpopulation is NOT the ecological problem on the Earth. The ecological problem is the LIFESTYLE that most of us humans are living - that is the problem. In fact we need everyone that wants to live on Earth to move unto the land and live in harmony with nature, not against nature, not killing nature, as we are doing now by: hauling food all over the place with semi-trucks; by growing mono-culture crops; by dumping our excrement into the sewers and not back into the soil like we should to help save topsoil erosion; etc..

4) Livestock outnumber people on planet Earth by a ratio of almost 3 to 1⁽¹⁾! Cattle alone outweigh all people on Earth by a ratio of 2 to 1⁽²⁾! 33% of the world's grain is fed to livestock⁽³⁾. 70% of the grain in the United States is fed to livestock⁽⁴⁾. If there is an overpopulation problem, then we should look at reducing the imprisoned livestock population, first. You won't reduce the livestock population by purchasing and eating more animal products (meat, eggs, dairy products), because the economy doesn't work that way! One way of reducing the livestock population is by buying LESS animal food products!

5) The truth is we need EVERYONE - millions of people, if we are to survive here on Earth, if we are to STOP the coming ecological disasters, the Ice Age, desertification, etc.. Millions of people will need to plant millions of trees to solve the ecological problems! (However, I don't believe that we need any more babies born to accomplish this!) We need a BIODIVERSITY of trees planted, food trees (fruit trees, nut trees) to be planted where currently there are grain crops being raised for livestock. Since once you plant a tree, it will be there many, many years, why don't we get together and plan this out so that the trees create a livable, "landscaped", natural, organic environment in which to live? Let's do it and let's persuade the government to do it, before it's too late!

1. United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, Production Yearbook 1989.

2. Lynn Jacobs, Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching (Tucson: Jacobs, 1990), p.366; quotes New Scientist (5/6/89).

3. Alan B. Durning and Holly B. Brough, Taking Stock : Animal Farming and the Environment Worldwatch Paper #103 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, 1991), p.14.

4. USDA, Economic Research Service, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, WASD - 256, July 11, 1991, tables 256,-7,-16,-19.-23.