Message-Id: <v04003a00b277bf14163d@[205.134.222.98]>
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Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 16:03:55 -0800
To: ppn@csf.colorado.edu
From: "Francis G. Bartlett" <fgbart@nwrain.com>
Subject: two fundamentals
<fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><bigger><bigger>Two topics having
great influence on the growing human population are seldom mentioned in
the flurry of commentary on the subject.


	1. The life forces of nature active  have sustained life on this
planet for the last half billion years without fear of total
extinction


	2. human intervention with those life forces have destabilized the
ecological balances needed for sustaining life.


Ever since mankind began to "help" nature produce food using
agriculture without compensating for its eventual effects it has taken
the time since the last ice age receeded to finally bring the world to
a condition where future life is in jeopardy. Prior to the end of the
last ice age the natural widely dispersed food stuffs required much
effort by humans to hunt for and gather necessary nourishment. This
process kept them moving about since their consumption of food in any
given area would soon deplete it. Prior to 25,000 years ago humans left
no evidence of burial customs so for about 75.000 years humans on dying
would suffer similar conditions to that of the wild animals. This may
have been part of the reason why the human population ten thousand
years ago has been estimated at only four million, spread through
Africa, the Near East, Malaysia and as far as eastern Asis. Some of the
more adventuresome had reached Australia and the Americas and the
population densitys were very low.


The strength of nature's life force that has persisted through 500
million years of earth's history cannot be overlooked since that
history as revealed in the configurations of the earth beneath our feet
and the strata exposed so handsomely in places like Grand Canyon of
Arizona includes events that makes any of man's accomplishments quite
inconsequential. Now that the human population has reached it present
levels the earth is running out of space and resources for people to
live in American.luxury.


It appears to me that present concerns about the population explosion
need to be directed toward easing the traumas already apparent
throughout the world of high population densities with due regard to
the availability of food enough for the living and little for any
increases in humAn numbers. Such A radical approach would face
unimaginable reactions due to the long cultural attitudes toward
population increases.</bigger></bigger></fontfamily>