Finite resources, overpopulation

The outcome of this presidential and congressional election may be irrelevant. Why? Because of the politics of greed, and of religious conservatism and extremism’s failure to rationally deal with world population growth and resource use, we are rapidly exceeding our ability to save ourselves by saving our planet.

Our seeming lack of species vision plus our apparent unwillingness to use the intelligence with which God gifted us will further define this future. In spite of strong individual survival instincts, as a species we’re eyeball-to-eyeball with an overpopulation-induced catastrophe.

We will soon outstrip the ability of science to enable our planet to support more population growth. When we are desperate to provide our families with shelter, heat, food and water, and unable to adequately treat plague-generating human waste, we will not give a hoot about endangered species, about wilderness areas, about emissions.

We will dig for coal anywhere without environmental considerations. We will clear-cut whole forests. We will do anything necessary to satisfy individual survival.

We must remember that human society depends upon three things only: mining, agriculture and, finally and perhaps most importantly, the creative application of accumulated human knowledge – the knowledge that we are abjectly failing to lucidly implement.

Donald Capstick

Spokane