Does anyone get that many of our environmental and social problems are due to the sheer numbers of humans; each demanding health care, income, shelter, transportation, food, energy, recreation, and a myriad of other goods and services?

What is the ideal population of Earth? United States? Environmentalists, let alone baby-kissing politicians, are loath to tackle population growth. The discussion should not get bogged down over whether the growth is caused by in-house fertility or from immigration. Nobody should care about the color or religion of the numbers.

Our economic system embraces many bogus positive indicators like the "number of new housing units". Business success is often measured by the number of new franchises. Is it really a good thing if the number of new fast-food outlets, malls, and housing units rise indefinitely? Can any economy really be underpinned by incessant growth and consumption and still be sustainable?

Sound long-term natural resource management, including humans, is not just for the "dickey birds'. It increases the chances that a society can meet the basic needs of all of its citizens. Huge numbers require, even generate, huge government and huge taxes. In 1776, we couldn't even conceive of the need for an EPA. Higher numbers bring more rules, even new agencies.

It's not just the dickey birds that pay the price. Global warming, famine, wars over oil, water, turf, etc.

Much of what we consume will never return: open space, quietude, starry skies, wildlife, and clean, free-flowing rivers and streams. Bountiful oceans, lakes, forests, and wetlands. We have taken them off the table - not an option for future generations

Ironically, the pathetic remnants of forest in our metropolitan areas still contain predators - only now they're human. It seems fitting.

The health of our planet's environment should not be measured by the health and welfare of its current human population. This shortsighted "hubris" is epitomized by those who agonize over the loss of a 16-cell human embryo but care (and vote) little about the irreversible extinction of other creatures. Many of those creatures are more sentient than the early human embryos. Ah, but do the creatures have souls? This author's purely objective, scientific, (religious) response: What about the 'rest of Creation' ? Did not God insist that Noah save all of the creatures, and then proceed to eradicate most of humanity?

It's been said that humans had an industrial revolution, are in the midst of the information revolution, and now direly need an "ethical revolution" Then we could wisely use our technology. Perhaps then, humans would rightly see their place.

Regarding human public health impacts associated with environmental degradation, the future is not as bleak. Why? The most powerful animal instinct is "self preservation"; it crosses political, cultural, and religious boundaries. However, we (and the planet) are undoubtedly experiencing unintended and currently unknown adverse biologic insults. Also, for largely 'pragmatic' reasons our society also deems "acceptable" a plethora of known adverse biologic impacts.

Self preservation not only includes protection of self, but plays a strong role in the urge to reproduce self.

Our leaders must have the courage to acknowledge and address the looming "numbers" issue. Surely they can propose democratic solutions, economic and tax incentives, environmental laws that actually protect ecosystems rather than trivialize the term, and local laws strong enough to protect "small town" and "rural" values.

Ecosystems have a "carrying capacity." As is common in biology, it's not a super precise thing, due to the incredible diversity inherent in the natural sciences. However, it can be stated with (statistical) confidence that once an ecosystem's estimated carrying capacity is exceeded, bad things happen.

At this point, the system's buffering ability, a complex of checks and balances, is spent. And - to use a popular term - a "tipping point" is reached. It becomes more vulnerable, susceptible to extreme fluctuations. The (eco)system morphs into a new, homogenized, simplified, less productive system. The system crashes !

Politically-correct environmentalists who ignore the "numbers" are akin to a fireman who upon arriving offers to do everything but put out the fire.

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